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Comment by throwaway918299 | Hacker News Reader

You can vote your way into a dictatorship, but you cannot vote your way out.

True, but given the fact that Brazil has in recent years voted the left in, then the right, and now the left again it doesn't strike me that a dictatorship has been established.

Thats why the original poster said " judicial dictatorship" and not "Executive dictatorship".

The judicial branch, not the presidency, is the issue in brazil.

Can you quote any analysis (even your own if it's peer reviewed) of how there is systemic illegal behaviour by the judicial branch in Brazil?

> of how there is systemic illegal behaviour

I didn't say anything about illegality.

Dictatorships can be perfectly legal. Especially if a court says so.

And, given the fact that this is about the judicial branch taking dictatorial actions, almost by definition anything that they decide or choose to do would be legal (As the judicial branch is the one that decides in the first place if its legal or not!)

But judges can only interpret the law (legally), they can't author the law. If they are taking dictatorial action that implies executive action, which is not within their remit in most countries (even including most non democracies). If a court issues an order it is up the the executive to enforce that order (for example an arrest warrant). So then to your argument, it would have to be more than the judicial branch in order to be dictatorial, it would also require at a minimum non opposition from the executive, or more likely cooperation.

And so, where is the evidence? Even 3 high impact examples would suffice as a starting point.

[EDIT]; typo fix

Either the people are suddenly that fickle, or the results are being manipulated, and Hacker News of all places should understand the problem with modern electronic voting systems that require highly competent IT and MIS people to manage and secure. People who we know do not often work for the government.

Keep in mind that in practice in Brazil, the elected party does not have the same kind of control that the elected party has in Canada, U.S. or Australia.

Usually you can't, but not always: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Chilean_presidential_refe...

That's only because the then dictator didn't want to dictate anymore.

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