Criminalist Hugo Leonardo comments on the former president’s right to defense, who was accused of encouraging a genocidal policy during the pandemic, and his right to exercise his role as coordinator of the former captain’s defense.
“The criminal lawyer should never be judged for the defense of a citizen. This is the basis of democracy and the rule of law. This should not be confused with the political statement made by the lawyer as a citizen”, says Leonardo.
Reporting revealed that Vilardi intended to claim that Bolsonaro never participated in an effort to encourage a .
The text recalls that the lawyer signed a manifesto against , repudiating the former president’s omission in the pandemic.
“The possible mismatch between the speech of the citizen-lawyer with the assumed defense and the thesis to be supported in the process must be questioned by his constituent”, says Leonardo, who presided over the Institute for the Defense of the Right to Defense (IDDD) between 2019 and 2022.
Vilardi is associated with IDDD.
“I feel comfortable defending the [ex-]president, because after studying the records I did not see any illegal act committed by him. Political criticism should not be confused with the right to defense in investigations or proceedings, which must be based on concrete facts”, Vilardi told the newspaper.
The right to defense is indisputable. Some lawyers would not accept discussing the possibility of representing Bolsonaro.
The former president’s indifference to Covid-19 deaths did not generate, at the time, the same indignation among ideologically tuned authorities. Today, they decide on the former president.
In July 2020, he stated:
“The does not allow the president to adopt genocidal policies. Policies that affect the lives of the population in a crucial, global way. It seems to me that we need to think a lot in this context.”
Months later, the Attorney General of the Republic, then general director of the Escola Superior do União, invited the federal deputy (-RJ) to a lecture about his management at .
The general was greeted by Gonet as “our dearest minister”.
Five deputy attorneys general had asked him to recommend that Bolsonaro avoid demonstrations against the Ministry of Health’s policy in combating the coronavirus.
Aras filed the request. He spared Bolsonaro and criticized the prosecutors.
The then president of AJD (Judges for Democracy Association), judge Valdete Souto Severo, wrote at the time:
“If there is still doubt about the possibility of qualifying the current policy as genocidal, it is enough to know that the Ministry of Health, which has no minister and is being managed by a military man, spent less than a third of the R$39.3 billion released for the fight against coronavirus through provisional measures.”
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