The Rio Federal Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right of the indigenous peoples of the South American country to make use of the lands they have occupied “historically, traditionally and permanently.” The decision was received negatively by landowners and agrarian businessmen, since they will have to vacate the claimed territories.
First modification:
3 min
With nine votes in favor and two against, the Supreme Court justices refuted the legal thesis known as “temporary framework”, which maintains that the only lands that indigenous peoples would have the right to claim are those that they inhabited on the 5th of October 1988, date on which the current Brazilian constitution was promulgated.
The officials who voted in favor concluded that, since article 231 of the Magna Carta speaks of “original” territories, the jurisdiction of indigenous peoples over said lands precedes the promulgation of the constitution, so it cannot limit the right of these communities over these.
Furthermore, representatives of indigenous peoples have argued that it would not be correct to use the date of the constitution’s promulgation as a temporal frame of reference, since it makes it difficult to demarcate lands from which certain communities were forcibly expelled, and which are now They claim their legitimate presence.
Compensation for landowners
After announcing their resolution this September 21, the magistrates agreed to debate next week on the possibility of compensating, in one way or another, those landowners who have been using the land for decades, although above the indigenous legitimacy conferred by the Constitution.
For Alexandre de Moraes, minister of the Supreme Court, possible compensation should only be aimed at those individuals who, in “good faith”, had paid for their lands to different municipal administrations, without having prior knowledge of the indigenous property they represented.
Among the options that would be considered is financially compensating the landowners, in exchange for abandoning the territory or granting the claimant indigenous peoples a fraction of land with an area similar to that they lost.
The possible compensation would not apply to those owners who removed the native communities from their lands through the use of violence, and they would only be forced by the State to vacate the land as soon as possible.
The Legislative Branch debates the “temporary framework”
Although the Supreme Court’s decision has great weight in the Brazilian political scene, the same issue continues to be debated in a Senate commission, which analyzes a bill that would recognize the legality of the “temporary framework”, to the detriment of the constitutional right conferred to the original populations.
Respect for the demarcation of indigenous land was momentarily suspended during the presidential term of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, who argued the decision on the basis that the distribution of land would make the development of the agricultural and meat industry “unviable”, two businesses very close to the Bolsonarism.
The current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has been against the “time frame”, since his government defends respect for the rights of indigenous communities and seeks “historical justice” for them.
The National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples mentions that the area that corresponds to the original communities of Brazil would be around 736 areas spread throughout the country, which represents about 13.75% of the territorial area of Rio.
With EFE
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