Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), delivered this Friday (Dec.16, 2022) a bill to the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), which establishes a period of 30 working days for the president of the Chamber to decide on impeachment requests.
Lewandowski chaired a committee of lawyers and law professors created in the Senate to suggest updates to the Impeachment Law (1,079 of 1950) and adapt the legislation to the 1988 Constitution. On this 6th (16.Dec), he formally delivered the report on the works to Pacheco.
Watch (20min36s):
The draft defines the authorities subject to cassation proceedings based on the law, limits the list of people and institutions that can present impeachment requests and creates new criminal types classified as a crime of responsibility –among them, that of “fake news🇧🇷 Here’s the full (245 KB).
🇧🇷The last impeachment process [da ex-presidente Dilma Rousseff, concluído em 2016] presented many gaps, especially from a procedural point of view, and one of the first tasks of this commission [foi] basically to ensure that those facing the impeachment process have their right to full defense, to adversary proceedings, and that the procedure is carried out according to due process of law”, declared the STF minister in an interview with journalists in the Senate.
Watch (11min29s):
According to the draft, the president of the Chamber would have 30 working days after receiving an impeachment request to decide whether to file it provisionally or submit it to the Board of Directors. Failure to deliver a statement within the deadline would be considered a “tacit rejection” of the request and would also lead to its archiving.
There would then be a period of 10 working days for the presentation of an appeal to the Board against the shelving by ⅓ of the 513 deputies or leaders of groups that, together, represent that number.
If the impeachment request was submitted to the Bureau or the appeal against the shelving was successful, there would be a period of 30 working days for the top of the Chamber to schedule a meeting to analyze the request. The accused would have 5 business days to respond.
During the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the opposition has repeatedly complained about the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), for not continuing or filing the more than 100 impeachment requests filed against the current Chief Executive.
Among the new criminal types that Lewandowski’s draft creates is that of “divulge, directly or indirectly, by any means, facts known to be untrue, with the aim of delegitimizing democratic institutions🇧🇷 The text does not detail, however, who and how it would be up to define whether facts disclosed by an authority are “known to be untrue🇧🇷
The draft also includes in the legislation all the authorities that would be subject to impeachment processes that are not included in the current Impeachment Law. According to Lewandowski, the 1988 Constitution frames some authorities as subject to trial for crimes of responsibility that are not included in the 1950 Impeachment Law.
Here are the authorities that would be subject to the Impeachment Law, according to the draft of the commission chaired by Lewandowski:
- President of the Republic and Vice President of the Republic;
- Ministers of State and Commanders of the Navy, Army and Air Force;
- ministers of the Federal Supreme Court;
- members of the CNJ (National Council of Justice) and the CNMP (National Council of the Public Ministry);
- attorney General of the Republic;
- Advocate General of the Union;
- ministers of superior courts;
- ministers of the TCU (Union Court of Auditors);
- heads of permanent diplomatic missions;
- governors and deputy governors of the States and the Federal District;
- secretaries of the States and the Federal District;
- judges and judges of the Courts of Justice of the States and the Federal District and Territories;
- judges and members of the military courts and the Federal, Electoral and Labor Regional Courts;
- members of the Audit Courts of the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities;
- members of the Public Ministry of the Union, States and Federal District and Territories;
- holders of bodies directly subordinated to the Presidency of the Republic.
Lewandowski stated that the report also suggests creating mechanisms so that the impeachment rite can be accelerated, “without breach of due process of law, ample defense and contradictory🇧🇷
He said that there would be a series of checks and balances mechanisms so that the express rite is not “trivialized🇧🇷
The report of the commission chaired by Lewandowski establishes that the prerogative to present impeachment requests rests with:
- political parties, nationwide entities, including trade unions, House and Senate boards of directors;
- citizens who have gathered the number of signatures corresponding to that required for popular legislative initiative.
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