The minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), criticized this Tuesday (16) the discussion in the National Congress of the project that allows the reduction of sentences for (PL) and others convicted of coup acts.
“It is no longer possible to speak about mitigating sentences, in sentences applied after due legal process, applied after ample possibility of defense, because this would be a message to society that Brazil tolerates or will tolerate new flirtations against democracy,” he said.
After being approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the project lost support and is at risk of being rejected by the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission) this Wednesday (17).
The rapporteur of the proposal, Esperidião Amin (PP-SC), will present his report and it is possible that the vote in the collegiate will take place afterwards.
The initial plan was for the text to be approved by the CCJ and then be deliberated in the Senate plenary. This scenario became less likely throughout this Tuesday.
Senators believe that it is necessary to make a change to the project so that it can be approved without creating a loophole for those convicted of other crimes unrelated to January 8th. Even those closest to Bolsonaro, who want the project to be approved as quickly as possible, .
In this case, it is most likely that the text will return to the Chamber for further deliberation, making definitive approval by Congress difficult in 2025.
Furthermore, the Senate leadership began to evaluate the approval of an alternative report in the CCJ, authored by senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE). He suggests that the Chamber’s project be rejected and that the senators prepare a new proposal. In this case, the discussion returns to square one from a legislative point of view.
Vieira indicates in the report the intention to more clearly distinguish the penalties of those who exercised leadership over the attacks and those who acted in a crowd context.
“There is a growing consensus on the need to clearly distinguish financiers and intellectual mentors from those individuals who acted under the influence of mass psychology, without command power or resources to finance the acts,” wrote the senator.
The president of the Senate has the power to put the project to a vote in the plenary even if the text is rejected by the CCJ. This scenario, however, is considered unlikely by allies of the head of the House, .
The main focus of resistance to the project comes from allies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). If it is not possible to reject the proposal in the CCJ, this group wants to force a review request (more time to analyze the text) to push the deliberation to next year.
The leader of the MDB, Eduardo Braga (AM), for example, announced this Tuesday that the party will be against the project.
“Despite the issue of January 8 deserving a review of dosimetry, the way the project reached the Senate cannot support the MDB,” he told journalists. “There are no conditions to make a change without this text returning to the Chamber with the defects contained in the project that reached the Senate”, declared Braga.
The Chamber. Alcolumbre, but the president of the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission), Otto Alencar (PSD-BA), protested. He obtained the support of other senators so that the project could have a preliminary analysis by the collegiate.
Prevention
At the Supreme Court, Moraes spoke about the reduction of sentences in the trial that led the First Panel to unanimously convict the former director of the PRF () and four other defendants who were part of one of the cores of the coup plot.
According to the minister, the setting of penalties serves both to convict the defendants and to prevent new attempts at democratic ruptures from occurring in the future.
“Prevent, make it very clear that it is no longer possible to take the State by storm, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defense, Institutional Security Office, Abin [Agência Brasileira de Inteligência]the Federal Highway Police should take action, to try to ensure that a certain group, which, I repeat, has turned into a true criminal organization, wants to remain in power forever, with these speeches that society is demanding that they remain in power”, he said.
The ministers of the First Panel concluded this Tuesday the trials of the main groups of the 2022 coup plot — the fifth group is made up only of businessman Paulo Figueiredo, who is in the USA.
At the end of the session, Moraes presented an overview of the processes surrounding the coup attempt and the attacks on January 8, 2023.
Minister Flávio Dino, president of the collegiate, stated that it is important to also collect data on the dosimetry applied to convicts. According to him, there are distortions in the public discourse on the topic.
“There was full compliance with the principle of individualization of the sentence. It seems that there was a disproportionate dosimetry, and the numbers show the opposite,” he said.
According to Moraes, with the last sessions of the year, his office must complete this survey, but he provided some data and stated that most of the convictions received light sentences.
According to him, ANPPs (non-criminal prosecution agreements) would be 45% — these can only be signed for crimes committed without violence or serious threat, for which the minimum sentence is less than 4 years. Another 31% of sentences would be for a maximum of 2 years, and 24% would be more serious. Of these 24%, 20% had their sentence set above 12 years.
