Why Has a Progressive Court Failed to Protect the Prison Population against COVID-19? Mass Incarceration and Brazil's Supreme Court.

Despite acknowledging the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic for the prison population, Brazil's Supreme Court declined to issue structural injunctions during the health crisis ordering lower courts to consider these risks when making incarceration-related decisions. These injunctions could have been crucial to mitigate mass incarceration and protect the prison population during the pandemic. Through an examination of the Supreme Court's rulings in structural cases and in a sample of over 4,000 habeas corpus decisions, this paper argues that granting these injunctions would have overwhelmed the court with an unmanageable influx of individual claims.

Is Mandatory Vaccination for COVID-19 Constitutional under Brazilian Law?

Mandatory vaccination for COVID-19 has been the object of heated debate in Brazil. This article discusses the legality and constitutionality of such a policy. First, it analyzes the laws, regulations, and Supreme Court decisions that provide for the possibility of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.

Withdrawing treatment from patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness: the wrong answer is what the wrong question begets.

In a recent paper, Charles Foster argued that the epistemic uncertainties surrounding prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) make it impossible to prove that the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment can be in a patient's best interests and, therefore, the presumption in favour of the maintenance of life cannot be rebutted. In the present response, I argue that, from a legal perspective, Foster has reached the wrong conclusion because he is asking the wrong question. According to the reasoning in two leading cases and -the principle of respect for autonomy creates a against treatment without consent.