Experts who monitor people management and data transparency in Brazil stated that the decision of the (Supreme Federal Court) but criticize the recreation of the , a rule that is known as five-year period.
This Wednesday (25), the STF unanimously decided to create. In addition to the salary, employees will receive up to 35% of the constitutional ceiling (the equivalent of R$16,210.67) as compensation (in other words, supposedly compensation for a cost incurred by the employee).
In addition, the ministers recreated an additional amount for length of service, which must also be a maximum of 35% of the ceiling. This is a transitional rule until the Legislature creates rules on compensation funds.
Republica.org states that the STF’s decision reinforces the privileges of legal careers: “The decision to allow the remuneration of magistrates and members of the Public Ministry to exceed the constitutional ceiling by up to 70% of their remuneration is disappointing, even under certain conditions. This maintains the existence of super salaries in these careers.”
In a note, the entity states that it is still necessary to define precise criteria to distinguish compensation from remuneration funds and that the Legislature needs to regulate payments through a law.
For Jessika Moreira, executive director of the Movimento Pessoas à Frente, the STF’s decision brings progress, but she criticizes the recreation of the five-year periods outside the ceiling. She points out that the Independent Fiscal Institution calculated in 2023 that this amount is R$5.2 billion in total, with R$3.1 billion for magistrates and R$2.1 billion for members of the Public Ministry.
“Brazilian society expects the ceiling to function as a real and equal limit for everyone, and when mechanisms are consolidated that allow it to be exceeded on a recurring basis, this expectation is frustrated, this weakens the credibility of the system itself and maintains the feeling that different rules apply to different groups within the public service.”
Transparência Brasil stated, in a note, that the big problem is that the transition rule creates a new remuneration ceiling, legalizing payments up to 70% higher than the STF minister’s allowance.
“This new ceiling is exceptional for the careers of magistrates and prosecutors, differentiating them from the rest of the public service and reinforcing privileges and inequalities”, says the text.
The entity also lists other payments that appear in the STF decision: pro-labore for teaching, bonus for districts that are difficult to fill and bonus for cumulative exercise of jurisdiction or office.
Luciana Zaffalon, executive director of Justa (a justice systems research center), states that one of the important points is the obligation for bodies to publish all payments on their websites.
“The decision advances by increasing transparency and eliminating a series of frills that had been inflating remunerations in an intelligible way.”
However, she criticizes the possibility of payments of up to more than R$70,000, which is “far from the values practiced in the public service in general and in the justice systems of other countries”.
During the decision, Minister Gilmar Mendes stated that the fact that there is autonomy of the Judiciary and the Public Ministry does not mean that these entities have sovereignty.
Carlos Ari Sundfeld, professor at FGV law, states that the origin of super salaries is not exactly the justification for these payments (for example, the compensation amount), but the fact that the bodies have their own budget.
“They are, above all, independent bodies that have guaranteed funding. They pay a lot of compensation because they have money left over, and not because they make creative interpretations of legal rules,” he said.
He compares it with public universities, which have less financial autonomy and where professors do not have this standard of remuneration.
For Sundfeld, to contain this type of distortion it would be necessary to review the rules of the Fiscal Responsibility Law.
