The minister, of the (Federal Supreme Court), denied this Monday (30) and maintained the blocking of part of the parliamentary committee amendments.
Despite noting in his decision that he has “a higher level of transparency” in relation to the amendments, the minister stated that, just as the deputies did, the senators did not obey the law when handling funds.
The amendments — billion-dollar resources from the Union Budget with destination defined by federal deputies and senators — are the subject of a decision by Dino blocking their execution.
The STF minister focused his decision on the so-called committee amendments, whose appeals in theory should be decided by the parliamentarians who make up the thematic bodies (Education, Health, Constitution and Justice committees, among several others) in the Chamber and Senate.
Despite this, both the Chamber and the Senate try to validate the execution of funds only through the approval of party leaders.
In a document sent to the STF this Monday (30), the Senate had requested the release of the amounts upon a commitment to vote in February — after the Congress recess
The House recognized that the committee amendments had not been approved by the thematic bodies, but, like the Chamber, defended the thesis that leaders could indicate and amend.
In his decision, Dino stated that it was not possible to accept the argument. “How to engage [reservar a verba no Orçamento] a ‘commission amendment’ whose indication of the beneficiary and the amount to be transferred to him were not approved by the commission?”
“This control by the parliamentary body is not a minor detail, as all senators are equal when it comes to amendments to the legislative budget process”, he concluded in his decision.
The minister repeated the understanding of previous decisions in the sense that committee amendments cannot be transformed into “party leader amendments”. Just like the Senate committee amendments, part of the funds indicated by the Chamber were also blocked by the minister.
As a result, only commitments for commission amendments made until December 23 remained valid.
This Monday, Dino’s decision regarding the Chamber and instructed all ministries not to carry out the commitments of the commission amendments.
Under the argument of legal certainty, the STF minister had authorized the execution of part of them, even though he argued that both the non-compliance with the laws and the lack of transparency remained.
The uncertainty surrounding the execution of the commission amendments, which total almost R$5 billion, generated a reaction from parliamentarians, which led to an attempt at an agreement between the government, STF and Congress, in a scenario that still remains undefined.
Amendments are a way in which deputies and senators can send money for works and projects in their electoral bases and, in doing so, increase their political capital. A , and not the locations with the highest demand in the country.
The amendments have also been the target of .
Behind the scenes, party leaders claim that there is coordinated action between Dino, who was minister of , and the government in order to aggressively reduce the weight of parliamentary amendments in the Budget. The STF minister also ordered an investigation by .
Congress is on recess and will only return to work in February, when retaliation may occur in votes of interest to the government.
