The Importance of Class Actions for the Evolution of the Brazilian Collective Procedure

Abstract

In the present article, was investigated the contribution that the american experience with the class actions could offer to the Brazilian Collective Procedure and the idea of collectivization of individual lawsuits. Based on this proposal, were analyzed institutes of the Rule 23 related to the class action prerequisites, the types of class actions and the certification order, which is the judicial decision by which a claim is received as a collective in the US system. All these institutes were analyzed in a comparative and interactive way in relation to the institutes of the Brazilian system, in order to seek an improvement of the model of collective conflicts resolution existing in Brazil. It was used the deductive method, starting from general norms applicable on cases involving collective rigths, seeking the conclusion more compatible with our constitutional system, and the research was based in a bibliographical and jurisprudential exploratory technic, that allowed to know the different positions about the theme. At the end, we concluded that the American experience with class actions can contribute to the Brazilian practice linked to collective procedure and collectivization of individual demands, both when disciplining the prerequisites for the admission of a collective claim, and when define the hypotheses that could be subject to collective demands (types of class action) or the points that could be faced by the decision certifying a collective claim (Certification order).