In the STF, the government considers a lesser sentence to be unconstitutional in cases of rape of vulnerable people with serious bodily harm committed by military personnel
The president's government Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), through the AGU (Attorney General of the Union), was against an excerpt from the Military Penal Code which, in practice, gave a lower sentence than the civil Penal Code for crimes of rape of vulnerable people with serious or very serious bodily injury.
The statement was sent to the STF (Federal Supreme Court) this Wednesday (Jan. 24, 2024). The opinion is about ADI (Direct Action of Unconstitutionality) 7,555, authored by PGR (Attorney General's Office) at the request of the MPM (Military Public Prosecutor’s Office). Here's the complete of the AGU opinion (PDF – 607 kB).
According to the document, the law 14,688 of 2023, which amended the Military Penal Code, diverges from the civil Penal Code precisely regarding the penalties for the crime of rape of vulnerable people.
In practice, as the law stands, a common crime of rape of a vulnerable person resulting in serious bodily harm can result in up to 20 years in prison. If the crime is committed by a soldier, however, the maximum sentence drops to 15 years.
If the victim is over 14 years old and under 18, the longest possible punishment is 10 years.
The new law, sanctioned in 2023, only places rape with serious injury as an aggravating factor. The common Penal Code, however, has a specific type of crime for these cases, hence the divergence.
“It is not possible to imagine a milder sentence for soldiers who comment on the military crime of raping a vulnerable person resulting in serious or very serious injury”wrote AGU.
The AGU concludes the statement by saying that the penalties for these crimes must follow what is set out in the civil Penal Code, respecting the proportionality of the penalties, without more lenient treatment for a certain group of people.
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