A, on Tuesday (2) that there were several acts with threat or violence-even before January 8-signals the posture adopted by the PGR to counter the thesis of that the attempted coup in judgment in the (Supreme Court) would not have the necessary elements to fit into the criminal types provided for by law.
Part of the defendants’ defense uses this premise, such as the former president’s lawyers (). They argue that Brazilian law sees the attempt – described in the criminal type – as linked to the beginning of execution, which would depend on the use of violence or serious threat. They also say that this violence or serious threat has to be against a person.
Specialists heard by Sheet They claim that while violence and serious threat are, traditionally in Brazilian law, aimed at a concrete person, criminal types about crimes against democracy may be dealing with a wider interpretation of the object of violence, extending it to things or democratic institutions. The question, however, still needs to be elucidated by the Supreme.
The requirement of violence or serious threat is provided for in the articles of the Penal Code dealing with the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law and the coup d’état, two of the crimes for which Bolsonaro and other defendants are accused. If convicted of leading the coup plot, the former president can take more than 40 years in prison and increase his ineligibility, which currently runs until 2030.
In Tuesday’s demonstration, Gonet spoke in a series of acts that would already bring violence or threat in them, beyond January 8 or the plan to kill authorities. With speech, he signals that the perspective adopted by the accusation goes beyond the focus of violence in concrete people, consistent with a broader perspective that thinks of offense to institutions and legal goods.
The PGR stated in the session that the threat of violence was revealed in stages in which the sequence of practices focused on the termination of democratic institutions developed.
He said the illegal use of ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) and the forces of the Federal Highway Police (PF) to try to prevent President Lula’s (PT) voters from voting in the 2022 elections already made up “moments of the coup set in progress in which violence is present.”
“The use of the monopoly of force by the State for the purposes of inhibiting the fundamental rights of citizens constitutes a violent act by itself,” said Gonet.
Likewise, he cited as in the “mastery of the term violence” the convening of military to deal with scammers, as well as the “incitement of movements of repudiation of the electoral outcome” and the support for camps “where he was openly cried by ‘military intervention'”.
“Forced truck stoppage, blatant bomb attacks, seizure in the streets of Brasilia after the loss of elections by the former President of the Republic are acts of violence that are linked to the ongoing attack on democratic institutions,” Gonet said.
Defendants’ defense such as former President Bolsonaro has bet on the interpretation that violence or serious threat provided by law must be against a concrete and determined person, such as what the politician’s lawyers commented on his final allegation.
They understand that acts such as the alleged plan to kill authorities and January 8 itself are the ones that would come closest to the picture described in criminal types. Therefore, they try to push them from the former president, saying there is no evidence that connect Bolsonaro to the acts.
According to Raquel Scalcon, professor at FGV Law SP, the reference in Brazilian law to violence is traditionally focused on the person, “which does not mean that this is the correct answer in this case [dos crimes contra a democracia]”.
She states that the issue is one of those who need to be faced by the Supreme Court about criminal types, which still bring doubts. The expert’s forecast is that the current one, inserted in the legislation in 2021 and analyzed in the Court only in the context of criminal actions involving January 8.
For Ricardo Yamin, a doctor of law from PUC-SP, the violence described in criminal types need not necessarily be focused against someone specific and can refer to democratically constituted institutions and powers.
“I do not need to violate the president -elect, I do not need to violate the Supreme Minister. I can have violent, aggressive attitudes against democratic institutions. [Garantia da Lei e da Ordem] and the arrest of opponents [citada no plano golpista] They are examples of violent attack. “
For Diego Nunes, professor of law at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), the discussion about the requirement of verification of violence or serious threat is fundamental in judgment.
“Classically, the threat is of a severe evil that results at least in the imminent possibility of usually physical damage. Some accept the possibility of psychological or patrimonial damage, or limitation of personal freedom,” says Nunes.
“The PGR seems to join this broader current. However, in the complaint, he made a point of associating Bolsonaro and the other defendants of the crucial core on January 8 through the idea of multitudinal crime. This means that he wanted to keep the STF class apply a more restricted concept, taking advantage of the acts of violence committed there and connecting them to those who were not present, but would have his noted, but would have instigated his, but would have instigated his, but was urged, but hiss commitment, “he says.
According to Luisa Moraes Abreu Ferreira, professor at FGV Law SP, the discussion about the target of violence and threat described in criminal types is a central point of the trial. She says the theme has not yet been defined by the Supreme Court.
“In the judgment of the January 8 executors, obviously there was violence. In the case of former President Bolsonaro he is not so directly linked to violent and serious threat acts,” she interprets.
“To say that he participated in all this and that all this was an attempt to coup d’état under the terms of 359, which requires violence or serious threat, the Supreme will have to define what he considers violence or serious threat for the purposes of this article.”
