STF minister will preside over commission formed by jurists to update the 1950 law
The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Ricardo Lewandowski said that the committee composed of jurists in the Senate to update the impeachment law will be able to better delimit the crimes of responsibility attributed to the targets of the process. The statement was made in an interview with the podcast. “Supreme in the Week”made by the Supreme Court.
the former president Dilma Rousseff (PT), for example, was removed from office on the charge of having committed crimes of fiscal responsibility, such as the so-called “tax pedaling” in the Safra Plan and the decrees that promoted expenditures that were not authorized by the National Congress. At the time, Lewandowski presided, in the Senate, the process that led to the PT’s loss of mandate.
According to Lewandowski, the Senate committee could also propose the punishment of those who make unfounded accusations against an official. The minister said that another possible change would be to force the Speakers of the House and Senate to analyze impeachment requests, instead of leaving them shelved.
At the end of 2021, for example, the president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) totaled 136 impeachment requests against him awaiting analysis. Since the beginning of his term, only 7, out of a total of 143, have been disregarded or shelved.
Lewandowski was appointed as chairman of the commission. The expectation is that the draft to update the impeachment law will be presented in 2022.
“There is a general complaint that many times these Parliamentary authorities do not decide either yes or no. This is bad for the person who makes the complaint of a crime of responsibility, but it is also bad for the person who is accused, because he is in a legal limbo. One of the two: either these 2 presidents, from both houses of the Legislative Power, immediately reject this complaint for being absolutely unfounded or for not meeting the legal requirements, or else they put this complaint, so to speak, in motion, initiating the procedure ”said the minister.
The impeachment law dates from 1950. It allows any citizen to have the right to file an impeachment request against some authority. If the accusation is against the President of the Republic, the analysis of the request is carried out by the President of the Chamber. But if the request is against, for example, a minister of the STF or against the attorney general of the Republic, the analysis is in charge of the president of the Senate.
“The accusation in general has wide publicity, the process in most cases, when it comes to unfounded accusations, does not prosper, but hovers in the air, especially among the population, the accusation that the authority committed a crime, and it did not may not even defend itself in the proper place”he said.
#impeachment #law #punish #baseless #request #Lewandowski