The new ‘must’ in Brazilian private law is the so called ‘constitucionalization’ of institutions that historically pertained to the realm of private law such as contracts and property--as a result of the influence of the German Law idea of Drittwirkung der Grundrechte and the Italian intellectual movement della decodificazione civile. The former claims the methodological application of the principles of the Constitution (manly the idea of human dignity and other fundamental rights) to interpret general clauses such as social function of property and of contracts. The latter argues in favor of the decodification of private law (the death of the Civil Code). The paper discuss the application of those ideas to Brazilian Law and defends the radiating power and vitality of the Civil Code and private law.

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