Federal District (Brazil)

The Federal District (Portuguese: Federal District [d͡ʒisˈtɾitu fedeˈɾaṷ]) is one of the 27 federal units of Brazil. Located in the Center-West Region, it is the smallest Brazilian federal unit and the only one that does not have municipalities, divided into 31 administrative regions, with a total area of 5,779,999 km². It limits completely with the entire state of Goiás, and in a small and narrow strip to the southeast, with the state of Minas Gerais. In its territory, is the federal capital of Brazil, Brasília, which is also the seat of government of the Federal District.

History

Since the first republican constitution, there was already a provision that provided for the transfer of the federal capital from Rio de Janeiro, at that time in the old Federal District (1889-1960), to the interior of the country. In 1891 the Exploration Commission of the Central Highlands of Brazil was named, led by the astronomer Luiz Cruls and made up of doctors, geologists and botanists, who made a study on topography, climate, geology, flora, fauna and other material resources of the region of the Central Highlands. The area was known as Cruls Quadrangle and was presented in 1894 to the Republican Government.

In 1922 a Federal Government commission established the location in Goiás, but the project was closed. Only in 1955, during an election, the then presidential candidate Juscelino Kubitschek stated that he would transfer the capital. Elected president, he established the construction of Brasília as a meta-synthesis of his Plan of Goals.

Brazil's capital was transferred from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia on April 21, 1960, and its new territory, separated from the state of Goiás on the border with the state of Minas Gerais, became the current Federal District. After the transfer, the former Federal District, which contained the city of Rio de Janeiro, became the state of Guanabara. This state existed from 1960 to 1975 when it merged with the state of Rio de Janeiro. With the merger, the state capital of Rio de Janeiro was transferred back from Niterói to Rio de Janeiro (as it had been until 1834 when the empire created the Neutral Municipality).

Government and politics

Buriti Palace, Federal District government headquarters.

House of the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District.

The politics and administration of the Federal District differ from the other units of the federation in some particular points, as defined in the Brazilian Constitution of 1988:

• The Federal District is governed by organic law, typical of municipalities, and not by a state constitution. It complies with the legislative competencies reserved to the states and municipalities, not vetoed by the Constitution.
• The hybrid character of the Federal District is observable by its legislative chamber, a mixture of municipal chamber (municipal legislative branch) and legislative assembly (statal legislative branch).
• The legislative power of the Federal District is exercised by the legislative chamber, with 24 elected district deputies; and the head of the executive branch is the governor.

The Federal District is a legal entity of internal public law, within the political and administrative structure of Brazil of a sui generis nature, since it is not a state or a municipality, but a special entity that accumulates legislative powers reserved to the states and municipalities, as provided in art. 32, § 1 of the CF, which gives it a hybrid nature of state and municipality.

Article 32 of the Federal Constitution of 1988 expressly prohibits the Federal District from being divided into municipalities, being considered one. The executive branch of the Federal District was represented by the mayor of the Federal District until 1969, when the position became governor of the Federal District.

The legislative branch of the Federal District is represented by the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District, whose nomenclature represents a mixture of legislative assembly (legislative branch of the other units of the federation) and municipal council (legislative of municipalities). The Legislative Chamber is made up of 24 district deputies.

The judiciary that serves the Federal District also serves the federal territories. Brazil currently has no territories, so the Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories only serves the Federal District.

Part of the budget of the Government of the Federal District comes from the Constitutional Fund of the Federal District. In 2012, the fund totaled 9.6 billion reais. For 2015, the forecast was 12.4 billion reais, with more than half (6.4 billion) for public security spending.

Territorial and administrative definition

Article 32 of the 1988 Constitution expressly prohibits the division of the Federal District into municipalities. The Federal District is divided into 31 administrative regions (of which only 19 are recognized by the IBGE; the borders of other regions have not yet passed through the Legislature for approval in the Federal District Legislative Chamber). The main one is the administrative region of Brasília, which has less than 10% of the population of the Federal District. The other administrative regions around it are often called "satellite cities". In Brazil, the idea of a city is closely linked to the seat of the municipality. However, in the Federal District, the different urban centers of the administrative regions are called that way. Some of these nuclei are older than Brasília itself, such as Planaltina, which was a city in Goiás before it became part of the Federal District, and Brazlândia, founded in the 1930s.