Dignitas: Revista Internacional do Instituto Brasileiro de Direito e Religião

Expediente

Gustavo Adolfo Pedrosa Daltro Santos — 2025-09-05

Editorial

Gustavo Adolfo Pedrosa Daltro Santos — 2025-09-05

The Freedom of Conscience and the Right to Vote

Mateus Guarnieri Do Amaral Rodrigues — 2025-09-05

The article aims to analyze the Brazilian legal system, as well as its guarantees to Freedom of Conscience and religious freedom, from the perspective of the conflict between the Right to Vote, which today occurs on Sundays in Brazil, and the right to freedom of conscience of those who observe Sunday as a holy day. To this end, the article will briefly address the legal and theological assumptions of the topic, going through a constitutional analysis and, at the end, proposing a new discussion on solutions to this conflict.

Conscientious Objection in the Armed Forces: A Comparative Study between Brazil and Spain

Bárbara Alice de Santos Barbosa — 2025-09-05

This study aims to investigate the development of the right to conscientious objection at the international level and its implications in Brazil and Spain. Adopting an explanatory methodology, with case studies based on Brazilian (STF and TRF/3rd Region) and Spanish (Constitutional Court) jurisprudence, the article uses a longitudinal approach to track the legislative evolution of the issue and conducts a comparative study of the situation of conscientious objection in Brazil and Spain, with an emphasis on the differences between the 1988 Brazilian Constitution and the 1984 Law on Conscientious Objection. The purpose of the article is to show how the right to conscientious objection is guaranteed and the challenges that arise in balancing freedom of conscience with the needs of a country's armed forces. The research suggests that, although both countries recognize the right to conscientious objection to some extent, the practical application of this right differs substantially, reflecting the political and social characteristics of each nation.

The Right to Religious Conscientious Objection

Alexandro Santos Oliveira — 2025-09-05

This article examines the right to religious conscientious objection as a fundamental right enshrined in the 1988 Federal Constitution and its interpretation by Brazilian case law. It analyzes freedom of conscience and belief, highlighting the importance of conscientious objection in protecting individual convictions against conflicting legal obligations. The study explores the relationship between a secular State and religious freedom, and demonstrates how conscientious objection aligns with the principles of Brazilian secularism. National legislation, such as Law No. 8,239/1991, is highlighted, and relevant court decisions are examined, including cases involving religious ministers and healthcare professionals, illustrating the practical application of this right and the challenges to the effective implementation of the fundamental right to religious conscientious objection.

Ontology and Conditions of Operability of Conscientious Objection

André Gonçalves Fernandes — 2025-09-05

This essay aims to investigate, analyze, and reflect upon the mode of being and the conditions of operability of conscientious objection, whose significance lies in the conflict—at times, profoundly dramatic—between the juridical normativity that imposes a certain course of action and the ethical or moral normativity that opposes precisely that action. Added to this is a certain institutional incontinence of political power, which has increasingly encroached upon various domains bordering human conscience, imposing values that do not always align with the normative demands that are proper and fundamental to human nature, and at times, directly contradict them. In the sections that follow, the history and concept of conscientious objection will be outlined, along with the most basic theoretical categories involved—political power, conscience, freedom, ethics, practical truth, democracy, pluralism, legality, and the common good. Based on these, we will seek to clarify the horizons of knowledge regarding the importance of the right to conscientious objection, bring to light the tensions between the political and personal spheres, raise questions about the limits of action for each, and ultimately uncover the cooperative ties between these two existential spheres in the pursuit of the conditions for the operability of conscientious objection.

REFUSAL IN ARTISTIC PRODUCTION FOR THE CONSUMER AND THE OBJECTION OF CONSCIENCE FOR GROUNDS OF BELIEF BY THE INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE

Julie Fernandes — 2025-09-05

Conscientious objection and consumer rights are equivalent in constitutional terms, both being provided for in the Constitution and considered fundamental rights. The Consumer Protection Code attributes abusive practice status to refusal to meet consumer demand. The question therefore arises: is there any possibility of a legitimate refusal by a supplier of artistic products or services to meet a consumer demand? Would the refusal be lawful or not? Could an individual entrepreneur, as a legal entity, make use of the right to conscientious objection in a consumer relationship? The aim is to answer these questions by demonstrating the existence or not of hypotheses of legitimate refusal using the hypothetical-deductive method, indicating normative and doctrinal sources.

The (Im)Possibility of Exercising the Constitutional Right to Conscientious Objection by Catholic Religious Legal Entities

Gabriela Neckel — 2025-09-05

From the very beginning, human existence has been marked by transcendental thought, in which the creation of man and the world, depending on individual belief, derives from a higher being. The intimate relationship between the individual and the divinity shapes human identity, as well as ethical and moral values, since it presupposes obedience to divine laws, even though free choice has been given to those who seek divine grace or downfall.

It is evident that belief in the transcendent is inseparable from the human soul and, therefore, considered a fundamental right, whose protection is enshrined in the constitutional text, ensuring its inviolability and conscientious objection in the fulfillment of a duty contrary to the precepts of religious belief.

However, although the Federal Constitution has guaranteed the right to conscientious objection to individuals, it is noted that this right is not applicable to legal entities, since it is directly linked to the inviolability of the individual’s conscience, that is, the ability to live in accordance with one’s own conscience.

Nevertheless, there are certain legal entities of a confessional nature whose institutional purpose is determined by doctrine, which is in accordance with their values of faith, morality, ethics, principles, and purposes, where the fulfillment of a duty would violate the rules of faith, as is the case with Catholic confessional institutions.

Thus, in this work, the possibility or impossibility of exercising the constitutional right to conscientious objection by Catholic confessional legal entities will be analyzed.

Ontology and Conditions of Operability of Conscientious Objection

André Gonçalves Fernandes — 2025-09-05

This essay aims to investigate, analyze, and consider the way of being and the conditions of operability of conscientious objection, whose importance lies in the conflict—sometimes very dramatic—between the legal normativity that imposes an action and the ethical or moral normativity that opposes precisely that action, not to mention a certain institutional incontinence of political power, which, in recent times, has invaded numerous border fields of human conscience, imposing values that do not always align with the normative demands proper and essential to human nature, when not directly contradicting them.

In the following lines, we will outline the history and concept of conscientious objection, as well as the most elementary categories involved—political power, conscience, freedom, ethics, practical truth, democracy, pluralism, legality, and the common good—and, from them, seek to clarify the horizons of knowledge on the subject of the importance of the right to conscientious objection, to bring forth the tensions between the political and personal spheres, to raise the limits of the action of one and the other, and, finally, to unveil the cooperative bonds between such existential spheres, in favor of the pursuit of the conditions of operability of conscientious objection.