Access-to-Justice Reforms: A Brazilian Case Study of Bank Litigation Related to Heterodox Economic Plans

Abstract

Between 2003 and 2016, Brazil carried out a World Bank-inspired “rule-of-law” reform that has failed to substantially increase access to justice. To buttress such a disheartening conclusion, this paper includes a case study of Brazil’s biggest litigation ever, which centered on the losses that bank customers had incurred because of heterodox national economic plans implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By showing that the system of binding precedents consolidated in the reform ended up favoring “repeat players” over “one-shotters” in this litigation, this paper seeks to explain how institutional reforms that fail to tackle deep inequalities may backfire.