Proposal regulates monocratic decisions by ministers of the Federal Supreme Court
A last Wednesday (22) rejected an appeal against the conclusive vote on Bill (PL) 3640/23, at the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship Commission (CCJ). The appeal, presented by the Partido Novo, was rejected by 344 votes against 95. The matter dealing with the regulation of the legal regime for concentrated actions of the now move on to . The matter was approved on the 30th, at the CCJ. The text, by rapporteur Alex Manente (Cidadania-SP) was based on a draft by a commission of jurists chaired by the minister do STF.
The text says, among other points, that direct actions of unconstitutionality (ADI); direct unconstitutionality by omission (ADO); declaration of constitutionality (ADC); and non-compliance with a fundamental precept (ADPF), must be judged up to 12 months after distribution, with the possibility of a justified extension. Another point is the requirement for a qualified quorum (2/3 of the ministers) to modulate the effects of STF decisions. The original proposal only provided for a simple majority.
Furthermore, STF ministers must justify monocratic decisions (those given by a single member of the Court), submitting the opinion to the plenary for analysis in the following session. Otherwise, the monocratic decision will become null and void.
Performance clause
One of the controversial points of the text concerns the limitation that only parties that have obtained a performance clause will be able to file actions to control the constitutionality of rules with the Supreme Court. This performance clause limit was not included in the original project. The legislation determines that, from the 2027 legislature onwards, only parties that have obtained, in the immediately previous elections, a minimum of 13 federal deputies distributed across at least 1/3 of the Federation units will have reached the clause.
Those who have obtained a minimum of 2.5% of the valid votes, distributed in at least 1/3 of the Federation units, with a minimum of 1.5% of the valid votes in each of them, will also reach the clause. The deputy criticized the measure, arguing that the Federal Constitution already stipulates that political parties with representation in parliament can file constitutionality control actions.
“Who today is legitimized to take action at the supreme court is in the constitution: every party that has representation in the national parliament,” he said. “We cannot reduce the number of parties that can call the Supreme Court, something that is provided for in the Constitution, placing the condition of a barrier clause through law, it is not even PEC [Proposta de Emenda à Constituição]”, criticized the deputy.
In relation to party federations, the project says that, to propose concentrated constitutionality control actions, they will act within the constitutional jurisdiction as a single party association, jointly, through their national leadership body, even if one of the federated parties, individually, has reached the performance clause. Furthermore, the text also states that only national trade union confederations or class entities will be able to file this type of action.
*With information from AFP
