Page 7 - Demo

Country Overview
Such unit structure came with the constitution of 1988, which enacted a presidential system but with a decentralized political power. Thus, the States have competence to all subjects that are not privative of the Union and the municipalities, provided they do not contradict Federal Constitution.
3. The Brazilian Legal System
3.1 The adopted Legal System in Brazil
Brazil features a civil law system. Therefore, our court decisions
are based on statutes, unlike the common law systems – where court decisions are one of the main sources of law.
Consequently, apart from a small number of appellate decisions that have general applicability, court decisions in Brazil are not binding to other courts.
3.2 Brazilian Laws
As mentioned above, Brazil is formed by 26 states and a federal district. These states also have internal divisions, called municipalities. There is approximately 5570 of them, which also have its own legislative authority to a certain extent.
The states and municipalities may issue laws within the established limits of each legislative authority, as designated by the Federal Constitution.
3.3 Understanding the Brazilian type of government
The Brazilian Constitution is structured into three different types of branches – executive, judicial and legislative branches – in order to avoid abuses of power.
The Executive branch is formed by the direct Public Administration, such as the ministries, and the indirect Public Administration, such as public companies, with the president as
the person in command. Voting is obligatory by law and the president must attain the majority of the votes of all citizens for a mandate of 4 years.
The Legislative branch is composed by the National Congress, which includes two chambers: the House
of Representatives (Câmara dos Deputados) and the Senate. All members of these chambers are elected by the people and the chosen representatives serve a 4-year mandate.
8.5 million square kilometers, which makes it the
fifth largest in territorial extension of the planet.
7