## Facts

- Brazil enacted laws as part of its currency reform converting amounts denominated in cruzeiros (and related units) into reais.
- FEBRAC (Federação Brasileira dos Sindicatos e Associações de Empresas de Asseio e Conservação) is a nationwide federation representing cleaning and maintenance companies.
- FEBRAC claimed the currency-conversion rules reduced the economic value of its members’ ongoing service contracts by altering how contract prices and payment obligations were recalculated in the new currency.
- FEBRAC filed an original collective *mandado de segurança* (writ of security / writ of protection) in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) against the President of the Republic, seeking protection of its members’ contractual and property interests.
- The federal government objected that FEBRAC lacked standing to sue on behalf of its members without express authorization from each member company.
- The government also argued that a *mandado de segurança* cannot be used to attack a statute “in thesis” (*lei em tese*)—that is, to challenge legislation in the abstract rather than a concrete, individualized implementing act.
- The case therefore presented threshold questions about (1) the procedural capacity of class entities in collective writs and (2) whether the writ was an available procedural vehicle for the type of challenge FEBRAC brought.

## Issues

1. Whether a class entity may file a collective *mandado de segurança* as a procedural substitute for its members without obtaining express authorization from each member.
2. What kinds of member rights may be asserted through a collective *mandado de segurança* by a class entity (including whether the right must be unique to the class or tied to the entity’s institutional purposes).
3. Whether a *mandado de segurança* (individual or collective) is available to challenge a statute in the abstract (*lei em tese*) without a specific administrative act applying the statute to the claimant’s situation.

## Decision

- The STF (Tribunal Pleno), in a unanimous decision (Rel. Min. Carlos Velloso), did not hear the petition (*mandado de segurança não conhecido*) and therefore did not reach the merits of FEBRAC’s contractual-impairment arguments.
- The Court accepted, as a general proposition, that class entities may bring a collective *mandado de segurança* with substitutional standing and do not need express authorizations from individual members.
- The Court held that *mandado de segurança*, whether individual or collective, does not lie against a law in the abstract, applying STF Súmula 266 (“não cabe mandado de segurança contra lei em tese”).
- Because FEBRAC’s petition was directed at the currency-conversion legislation itself, rather than at a concrete administrative act that individualized the alleged harm, the writ was procedurally improper and was dismissed at the admissibility stage.

## Legal Principles

- A class entity may file a collective *mandado de segurança* under the Constitution (art. 5º, LXX, b) as a procedural substitute for its members; express authorization from each member is not required.
- The object of a collective *mandado de segurança* must be a right of the members; the right need not be exclusive to the class, so long as it falls within the sphere of activities carried out by the members.
- A *mandado de segurança* requires a clear legal right threatened or violated by an illegal act or abuse of power by a public authority; it is not a vehicle for generalized, abstract review of statutes.
- STF Súmula 266 bars *mandado de segurança* against *lei em tese*: normative acts are general and abstract and ordinarily need an implementing act to produce an individualized legal effect that can be challenged by this remedy.
- Challenges aimed at invalidating legislation in the abstract must proceed through the constitutional procedures designed for abstract review (rather than through *mandado de segurança*).

## Conclusion

In MS-22132, the STF recognized that FEBRAC, as a class entity, could seek collective writ relief without collecting individual member authorizations and could assert member rights connected to members’ activities, but the Court unanimously refused to hear the case because the petition attacked currency-conversion statutes in the abstract, which is barred under Súmula 266 absent a concrete, individualized implementing act.


FEBRAC v. President of the Republic, Writ of Security 22132-1 (Rio de Janeiro) MS-22132 (1996)