The plenary session of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) will judge this Thursday the decision of Minister André Mendonça who ordered the National Congress to extend the INSS CPI.
Initially, the analysis of the action was scheduled for the virtual plenary session starting next week, but the President of the Court, Minister Edson Fachin, scheduled the analysis in person.
The decision took place a few days before the closing of the commission, scheduled for March 28th. According to the minister, the measure was urgent as there was a risk of rendering parliamentarians’ rights ineffective.
In the decision handed down this Monday, minister André Mendonça ordered the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), to receive within 48 hours the request that gathers the necessary signatures for extension and read the document, extending the work.
The minister also established that, if the order is not complied with within this period, the request will be considered automatically received and read, authorizing the CPI presidency to continue the work. The decision was taken in action filed by the president of the CPI, senator Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG) after the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre, did not show signs that he would call the Congress session to read the request to extend the commission’s operating period.
According to the president of the CPI, senator Carlos Viana (Podemos-MG), the work should last another 60 days.
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When deciding on the extension, Mendonça cited the precedent of Covid’s CPI, which began to operate in Congress as determined by then STF minister Luís Roberto Barroso. The Constitution establishes that the functioning of parliamentary commissions of inquiry is a right of minorities in Parliament and that they must operate when legal requirements are met.
“The creation of parliamentary commissions of inquiry is the political-legal prerogative of parliamentary minorities (…) In this context, the recognition of the right of the parliamentary minority to install a CPMI, without the majority or the direction of parliament creating obstacles devoid of a constitutional foundation, produces significant effects on the legal plane. It imposes, as a logical consequence, the acceptance of the conclusion that the same minority also has the right to decide whether or not there will be an extension of the operation of the aforementioned commission.”
