O sistema de precedentes judiciais na promoção de segurança jurídica em matéria tributária: uma análise dos temas 881 e 885 do STF

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the role of binding precedents issued by the Supreme Federal Court in promoting legal certainty within the tax sphere, taking as its focal point the rulings on Themes 881 and 885 to illustrate their impacts in the tax, procedural and constitutional domains, as well as the significant social function fulfilled by the precedents system. Initially, the structure of binding precedents is examined—its origin, constituent elements and the debates engendered by its introduction into the national legal framework, together with the resulting repercussions. In light of the widely-accepted argument that this mechanism enhances the predictability, uniformity and stability of judicial decisions, the present work offers quantitative data on tax-legislative activity across Brazil’s federative entities, demonstrating that, in the face of normative hypertrophy, the consolidation of legal certainty is essential both to the preservation of constitutional guarantees and to the proper operation of the system. Within this context, the controversy submitted to the Plenary of the Constitutional Court concerning the effects of constitutional-review rulings on res judicata in successive relationship cases is discussed, as well as the application of the supervening legal regime to judicial instruments endowed with prospective effect. Finally, this study seeks to determine whether a subsequent pronouncement by the Supreme Court is capable, by operation of law, of interrupting the effects of res judicata with respect to taxable events that arose after the new understanding, and to delineate the temporal boundaries of the Court’s decision in terms of its executive efficacy.