Unconstitutional constitutional amendments: can a strong judicial review avoid abusive constitutionalism?

The Brazilian Constitution is perhaps one of the few Constitutions in the World that brings in its role of immutable clauses a larger and more restrictive nucleus of the Power of reform. If on the one hand this limitation may be seem as undemocratic, it can be justified in order to avoid an abuse in the reform of its nucleus in moments of crisis. In fact, abusive Constitutionalism has demonstrated abuse in constitutional reforms, whether by Amendments or new constituent processes to keep Presidents in power and weaken the checks and balances. Thus, this paper intends to discuss how the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) has faced the issue of judicial review of constitutional amendments and whether there is a change in their behavior to be more activist or more deferent in times of economic crises or policies. Thus, the proposed question is: can a strong judicial review of Constitutional Amendments by the Judiciary avoid abusive constitutionalism in Brazil?