Law of Independent Agencies: the new regulatory reform in Brazil

Brazil has recently promoted a wide-ranging organizational and institutional reform of federal regulatory agencies. This regulatory reform, represented by the so-called General Law of Agencies (Law no. 13,848/2019), sought to improve regulatory governance through the definition of new structures and mandatory procedures for independent agencies, aiming to promote regulatory quality. This paper aimed to assess the effects of the new legislation on the functioning of federal regulatory agencies, particularly the tools for transparency participation, harmonization, and improvement of the decision-making process, used in good regulatory practices. Based on document analysis and structured interviews with key actors in all 11 federal agencies, a comparison was made between the period before the law and the regulatory scenario after one year of its validity. The data collected indicate the consolidation of public consultation, regulatory impact analysis and transparency in decision-making, aspects addressed by the new legislation. Such practices were already part of the culture of independent agencies, but the enactment of the new legislation reflected a sedimentation of these essential actions for the adoption of quality regulations, in line with the tools used for better regulation, adopted by European regulatory bodies. This new scenario unveiled by the research points to a potential advance in the Brazilian regulatory governance model at federal level, which can strengthen the credibility and trust of independent regulatory agencies.