De Mello, by determination of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, had his career marked by a lawsuit in 1992. To avoid the loss of the warrant, he resigned on December 29 of that year, a day before the final vote on the Senate case.
Despite having the political rights revoked for eight years by Congress, the former president was never convicted of the judiciary for the accusations that took him from the presidency of the Republic.
In May 1992, Pedro Collor de Mello, the then-president’s brother, denounced in an interview with Veja magazine a scheme involving Collor and former campaign treasurer Paulo César Farias. The facts were determined in a CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) whose report incriminated the then Chief Executive.
In the Senate, he was convicted of 76 votes to 2, months after the Chamber authorized the opening of the process. In court, the case was tried by December 1994. The complaint was not accepted, and the former president, acquitted.
Collor now has been to the arrest convicted of corruption and laundering crimes from 2010 to 2014, when he was a senator, in the process of Operation Lava Jato.
Luiz Fernando Bandeira de Mello, partner of Serur Advogados and former counselor, says that acquittal in the 1990s happened due to lack of proof and for procedural reasons. “The Supreme Court understood that there was no proof for some accusations. Regarding others, there was a prescription of the crimes, which does not even allow analysis of these evidence,” he says.
He says that the difference in the results has to do with the framing that each process gives to the facts ascertained. “Collor suffered two types of prosecution. One of a political nature, in the case of impeachment, and another in the judiciary, of which […] The same conduct, it can have a criminal, political, administrative or civil approach, for example. “
According to Maíra Salomi, lawyer and vice-president of the IASP Criminal Law Commission (Institute of Lawyers of São Paulo), acquittal in criminal action occurred because court proceedings require more robust evidence. “Criminal proceedings have the probative standard [quantidade mínima de provas para justificar uma decisão] taller of all instances. Therefore, it is worth the maxim that, in doubt, you should judge in favor of the defendant, “he says.
Maíra also states that, if it happened today, the trial of the former president could have resulted in conviction. A, sanctioned in 1998, expands the hypotheses and penalties of punishment.
Another point that could change the result, according to the lawyer, is an increase in repression against the crimes of “white collar” and the speed of the processes that investigate them. “If you look at current jurisprudence, it is much more rigorous with this type of defendant,” he says.
Like Collor, the former president was also punished in impeachment process and was not convicted in court. against the petista in the case of “tax pedaling” was filed in 2023.
