Resumo:
The public illumination represents the essential unconditional source for the
community quality of life. Besides illuminating streets, avenues, squares, historical
monuments and others public areas, favoring leisure, commerce and the tourism, while
improving the image of the cities, the public illumination, trough the civilization, constituted,
in such a way, one of the vectors for the public security in the question of the traffic of
pedestrians and vehicles as much in the prevention to crime.
The privatization of the electric sector incited the debate about the public illumination
difficult situation in Brazil, because of controversies in the definition of the effective ability
and responsibility for the service installment, as well as in function of advances and
retrocession in the search process of the expenditure source equation and financing of this
essential public service.
The present research has as objective, analyzing the legal questions that involve the
financing of the electric energy consumption for the service installment of public illumination
in its aspects, considering sinc e the question to whom the responsibility for its installment
competes effectively, the tax adopted to finance this service, systemize the existing
irregularities in the contribution collection for the expenditure of the public illumination.
Some data concerning the importance of the public illumination in the energy aspect had been
raised, pointing the participation of the public illumination in the electric energy consumption,
as well as information about the service installment of public illumination in the
concessionaire point of view, concerning electric energy public service.
The final results indicate the existence of irregularities in the contribution collection
for expenditure of public illumination - COSIP, introduced in the Brazilian legal system by
the Constitutional Emendation nº 39, of 2002, aiming at taking care of thousands of Brazilian
mayor’s claim. Amongst the irregularities, the violation to the constitutional principles, as
well as the legal nature of the collection have been the target of doctrinal quarrels and debates
between the ones involved in the utility relationship of the concessionaire versus the
responsible entity for the service installment, city halls versus townspeople and
concessionaires versus users/consumer.
It is inferred that there is an urgent necessity of a better evaluation and build an
equation of the financing source for the service expenditure of public illumination, that is
under municipal authority. With the results’ analysis, it is concluded that the cost of public
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illumination expenditure is becoming, in fact, each time more an insoluble problem, because
it cannot assume the contribution, but also cannot pretend to have the legal nature of a tax.
Facing the facts, identifications finally appear in order to solve the impasse, either
with the institution of a tribute compatible with the constitutional rules, or the suggestion of
more reasonable and fair tributes.