A criticise the Federal Supreme Court and its Ministers is not new. However, even in deeply critical work of the court, the legal community focused on the words of the ministers and ministers in their votes and decisions. At least in the legal debate, the focus was on what those actors said they were making when deciding – or what they said the Supreme Court could or should do. Written reasons, in addition to which other official pronouncements, are an important part of the functioning of judicial institutions, and it would be to ignore them. More striking than decisions taken by elected powers, the power of courts is exercised in words, which over time shape our own expectations about what to expect from these institutions. How does the Supreme operate and decide, in fact? What are the limits of your decision-making power – or of your own independence from political actors? How does the court choose your cases? If there is a choice, which criterion does the court use to prioritise this or the problem? What capacity does the court have to guide the behaviour of lower courts in fact? How can ministers use the resources associated with different procedural positions (voters, rapporteurs, court and class presidents) to make these gears work – or perhaps prevent them from moving? Such questions are at the heart of a ‘realistic’ search for the Supreme and its Ministers over the last decade. The focus of this case is precisely on the stable structure of the court, and on the implications it has for what we think the Supreme Court. We have brought together a set of researchers with different insights on the deep structure of the Supreme, going beyond what ministers say in their votes and decisions, as well as the borderlines created by crises and economic conflicts.