Over time, they reflect a game whose balance changes due to shocks produced by events such as scandals and/or radical changes in the institutional environment. The conflict rotates in terms of those who have forum; Who has initiative and veto power; And, those who benefit from the restriction/expansion of the forum to the mandate and function, making it temporary or perpetual (lost office, the forum remains).
Although between 1964 and 1999, the forum became perpetual, only in 1969 was extended to parliamentarians (not only holders of some executive and magistrate positions). However, the impact was very limited because the opening of the process required prior license from the Legislative House of origin – which never granted it. The legislature had Gatekeeper powers – the power to veto the initiative – which only changed with EC 35/2001, which dismissed the license. It has come to have full control over its criminal jurisdiction. The change was due to the case Hildebrando Paschoal and, then, and washes jet. In the monthly, it was clear that the privileged forum in the Supreme was no guarantee of impunity.
As no, evidence of manipulation of the forum by parliamentarians, just like that of the former governor of Paraíba Ronaldo Cunha Lima, had a strong impact. Cunha Lima tried to assassinate his predecessor, but could not be sued due to the need for prior license from the Legislative Assembly. Elected senator in 1994, his case was sent to the Supreme Court, where he remained stopped until 2001. With EC 35, the authorization of the no longer necessary, but Cunha Lima was elected federal deputy. On the eve of his trial, in November 2007, he resigned his mandate, displacing the case to the first instance, where he prescribed.
“His gesture shows how perverse the privileged forum is,” he said, the rapporteur, annoyed because he waited for the Supreme to include the action on the trial agenda on Monday, 14 years after the murder attempt and 5 after the process began to resign. “What you have to do is end the forum. That’s all.”
The inability of the Supreme Court to fulfill its criminal jurisdiction – to realize hearings etc – it was evident. The political burden of the high stock of processes – which in 2018 reached more than 500 actions – was supported by no longer by the legislature but by the Supreme Court. The cost of court hyperprotagonism increased significantly. Hence the reconfirmation in 2018 of the forum, but now with restrictions on mandate and function.
The reinstitution of the perpetual forum, in the current conjuncture, restores the previous status quo. This change, also endogenous, is due once again to shocks in the broader institutional environment. The shock now is Bolsonaro’s trial and involved in a blow. While in 1999 the Supreme Court was a referee of criminal proceedings, it is now part of the case. Both – the cut and their ministers – are victims. Its goals are now broader, in a certain existential sense: to resist unpublished institutional threats and wide scrutiny. Strategically the perpetual forum widens the Supreme control over his actions, as he extends the intertemporal framework of his jurisdiction.
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