Criação constitucional sem Poder Constituinte: Os limites conceituais do poder de substituição ou revisão da constituição

This article makes a case against the wide-spread conception of the constitution-making power as a foundational, legally boundless and sovereign constituent power. A conceptual analysis of the power to replace or revise the constitution shows that this understanding is incorrect. Instead, the article advances a socio-ontological conception of the power to replace or revise a written constitution, as a limited deontic power of citizens’ political proxy-agents, who are collectively intentionally recognized as having the status of constitution-makers for performing the function of institutionalizing constitutionalism. This conception illuminates a clearer approach to understand the constitution-making power, and to evaluate the legitimacy of its exercises.