A atividade profissional de relações governamentais e institucionais (lobby) e a perspectiva de sua regulamentação legal no Brasil

Abstract

The present work has as scope the analysis of the professional activity of governmental and institutional relations, also widely known as lobby. This profession has legal regulations and has already been incorporated into the political tradition of countless countries, notably the United States, where the practice has been disciplined since 1946 when the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act (FLRA) was promulgated. In Brazil, the debate over the approval of a federal law that deals with the subject has already been extended since 1984, when Senator Marco Maciel presented the first bill on the subject, and currently revolves around the appreciation of PL 1,202 / 2007, by the deputy Carlos Zarattini, for the Chamber of Deputies. From a comparative perspective, it is noted that the regulatory projects under discussion in Brazil have incorporated many mechanisms already provided for the US legislation, such as the creation of a register for lobbyists, the presentation of accountability´s reports, the establishment of a quarantine for ex-servants and ex-members of the Public Administration and the implementation of penalties for offenders. However, the lack of consensus around the existing proposals prevented the effective approval of any one of them, which means that the activity of representing interests remains without any legal discipline in Brazilian soil until the present day. To a large extent, the intense disagreements and controversies about the subject involve pondering whether the official regulation of the activity brings more advantages or disadvantages to the quality of social representation in a democratic regime. The theoretical analysis on both sides of the discussion demonstrates that the arguments in favor of the legal regulation of lobbying are better sustained, taking into account the experience in countries where there is already a normative document for this purpose.