HOW ARE DECISIONS MADE? A PROPOSAL TO REFORMULATE A RESEARCH PROBLEM

This paper aims to stimulate the debate about the reformulation of the research problem: "how do the judges decide?". Although there is a authors who investigate this problem, there isn't discussion about the acts that precede and are part of the process of producing a judicial decision. In this sense, the interviews given by judges to the Supreme Court Brazilian Oral History Project were used to demonstrate that, even before a judicial decision is produced, and arrive at the decision-making, there are several moments capable of influencing the conviction of the magistrate and the rights being produced. Thus, from the reading of the interviews, the notion of backstage by Goffman (1975), and the organization of moments considered fundamental by judges, it is intended to highlight the need to open a research agenda to investigate a problem different from what previously mentioned, which is: "how are decisions made?"