In March, the minister had denied the PGR’s request to close the investigation.
Minister Rosa Weber, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), decided to close the investigation that investigates the alleged prevarication of the president. Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the purchase of the Indian vaccine Covaxin.
Weber accepted a new appeal presented by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR). In the new decision, signed this Friday (22.Apr.2022), Weber said that the attorney general requested that the investigation be closed by “Reason of Merit” that would be subject to the judgment of the Court.
In the new request, however, the minister says that the PGR presented a new argument, including the absence of “just cause“, that is, evidence, to proceed with the investigation and that, therefore, there was no “alternative but to accept, this time, the request made“.
The magistrate also added that the history of the STF’s decisions does not allow her to refuse the PGR’s new request.
“As I pointed out in the aggravated decision-making act, the jurisprudence of the Federal Supreme Court considers the refusal of a request for the archiving of an investigation or pieces of information made by the Public Ministry to be unfeasible, when anchored in the absence of sufficient elements for criminal prosecution”, says the decision. Here’s the intact of dispatch (262 KB).
In March, the magistrate had denied the appeal of the Attorney General’s Office. On the occasion, Weber argued that the Chief Executive has “the power-duty to trigger the internal control mechanisms legally provided for, in order to seek to stop the criminal action”.
The PGR asked for the filing based on the PF (Federal Police) report. In the document, the PF concluded that there was no “functional duty” for the president to report irregularities to the authorities, and that this would mischaracterize the possible crime of malfeasance by Bolsonaro in the Covaxin case.
COVAXIN CASE
The inquiry was launched in July at the request of the PGR. The investigation investigates Bolsonaro’s alleged prevarication in not requesting the Attorney General’s Office to open an investigation into an alleged case of overpricing in the negotiation of the purchase – which never materialized – of the Covaxin vaccine.
Deputy Luis Miranda said at the CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) of Covid that he had a meeting with the president and warned him about the alleged irregularities in the purchase of the immunizer. The congressman also said that the president would have cited the leader of the Government in the Chamber, deputy Ricardo Barros.
In the investigation report, the PF said that “In any case, in the context of the facts considered here, even if he did not act, the President of the Republic Jair Messias Bolsonaro cannot be accused of the crime of malfeasance. Legally, it is not a functional duty (read: legal), arising from the rule of competence of the position, to practice an official act of communication of irregularities by the President of the Republic..
According to the organ, even if Bolsonaro has incurred the hypothesis of “omission” by not reporting on alleged irregularities, the conduct “it would be closer to an absence of the fulfillment of a civic duty, but not to a deviation from a functional duty”.
In the document delivered to the STF, the PF states that the investigation focused only on whether or not Bolsonaro committed the crime of malfeasance. Investigators say the alleged irregularities in the purchase of Covaxin were not the subject of the investigation.
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