The Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) sent Senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE), rapporteur of the anti-faction bill in the Senate, a document with 58 suggestions for corrections to the text approved in the Chamber, authored by Guilherme Derrite (PP-SP), licensed deputy and Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo.
The senator had asked those involved in the discussion for documents that could support his report on the project. Vieira, considered a parliamentarian equidistant from the government and the Bolsonaro opposition, should finish his opinion by next week.
The MJSP’s 35-page document makes a series of comparisons between Derrite’s text and the original project, prepared by the ministry’s National Public Security Secretariat, and points out some aspects that it considers problematic in the version that Vieira received from the Chamber.
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The MJ criticizes, above all, what it has been calling “legal chaos” that could be created as a result of the eventual approval of Derrite’s project. This is because the approved text creates a framework from scratch, the Legal Framework for Combating Organized Crime, with a new classification; while the government project focused on updating existing legislation, such as the Criminal Organizations Law and the Penal Code.
“Creating another diploma to deal in parallel with ‘ultraviolent criminal organizations’, instead of strengthening the fight against organized crime, could create a conflict of norms and interpretations. The new legal framework presents a confusing definition of what this ‘ultraviolent criminal organization’ would be. In the same provision, it still presents the concept of criminal faction, without correlation with the definition provided for in article 2 of the current legislation”, says the document.
The government also argues that the current project could, in its view, criminalize social movements and protesters. The section in question says that “restricting, limiting, obstructing or hindering the free movement of people, goods and services, public or private” becomes a crime.
“Despite good intentions, it can allow the criminalization of political and social actions that are not criminal in their origin, such as movements merely demanding rights”, says the MJ.
It then suggests the inclusion of an item to protect innocent civilians: “The provisions of this article do not apply to the individual or collective conduct of people in political demonstrations, social, union, religious, class or category movements”.
The issue of re-division of resources seized from crime – the Achilles heel of Derrite’s text, which would lead to a decapitalization of Federal Police funding – also received suggestions from the federal government.
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While Derrite suggests the apportionment in equal parts between the National Public Security Fund (FNSP) and the Public Security Funds of the respective States or the Federal District of the amounts seized in the case of joint action between the PF and the state or district public security forces, the MJ claims that the measure violates the legal and constitutional obligations already established.
The government says that, currently, the goods and values from drug trafficking must be allocated to the National Anti-Drug Fund (Funad); assets and values from crimes committed by militias must be directed to the FNSP; assets and values obtained in money laundering crimes go to the Fund for the Equipment and Operationalization of Core Activities of the Federal Police (Funapol); and the assets and values resulting from fines, resources confiscated and sold in favor of the Union of crimes in general go to the National Penitentiary Fund (Funpen).
“Decapitalizing federal funds, in the end, is decapitalizing the PF, the Federal Highway Police and the Federal Penal Police, as well as the actions of these police forces in the fight against organized crime. Revenue from forfeiture of assets represents a vital source of resources for the execution of public security and justice policies”, says the document.
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The government states that, in 2025, revenue from seized assets totaled approximately R$367.48 million, and that the withdrawal or redistribution of these amounts would reduce the operational and financial capacity of bodies and funds, “directly affecting the execution of public policies”.
The Secretary of Legislative Affairs of the MJSP, Marivaldo Pereira, told the Estadão that the government “will not admit” the withdrawal of competence or resources from the PF and that it will “fight to the end” to overcome what it called obstacles created by Derrite to measures to decapitalize criminal organizations and block criminal assets.
Pereira changed last week’s speech shortly after approval in the Chamber plenary, when he declared that Palácio do Planalto’s bet was to save the original project in the Senate:
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“There is never any commitment on the part of the Executive to the approval of the original text. We are now trying to save the existing system and avoid legal chaos that the proposal, as it stands, will create in the system of criminal prosecution, of combating criminal organizations. It is possible to have another proposal, but it needs to respect the existing system. We are not keen on it being the government’s text”, he stated.
