Congress overturned, with 318 votes against and 144 in favor in the Chamber and 49 votes against 24 in the Senate, the maintenance of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) veto of Bill 2,162/2023, known as the Dosimetry PL, which changes the rules of criminal calculation and regime progression for those convicted of the acts of January 8 and, in practice, could reduce Jair Bolsonaro’s sentence.
The PL had been vetoed in its entirety on January 8 of this year, in reference to the date that marks three years since the invasion of the headquarters of the Three Powers.
The session in Congress was marked by demonstrations on both sides, with speeches from the opposition about the defeat that the government suffered on Wednesday (30), when the Senate rejected the nomination of Jorge Messias to the Federal Supreme Court), and speeches from government parliamentarians against the dictatorship and condemning the attempted coup after the 2022 elections.
The main change proposed by the text is the determination that the crimes of attempted coup d’état and violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, when committed in the same context, will no longer have added penalties and will now follow the rule of their own formal competition, applying only the penalty for the most serious crime, with an increase of 1/6 to 1/2.
The change affects Bolsonaro’s conviction. With the return of the text, the former president could have his sentence revised to between 22 and 25 years and would leave the regime closed after serving between 3 years and 8 months and 4 years and 2 months.
In addition to Bolsonaro, the project could benefit at least 179 prisoners for the acts, of which 114 are currently serving sentences in a closed regime. The text also creates a reduction of one third to two thirds for crimes committed in a crowd context, without exercising a leadership role — a device that can also be applied to several people convicted of the events of January 8th.
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The return of the Dosimetry PL could also facilitate the progression to the semi-open regime for those convicted of heinous crimes, such as feminicide, but this section ended up vetoed due to a maneuver by the president of Congress, senator Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP).
Alcolumbre excluded from the analysis of vetoes to the text the six sections that contradicted the Anti-Faction Law, which would even benefit members of criminal factions. The decision was taken during the session, in a kind of “dismemberment” of Lula’s full veto.
As a result, crimes involving private militia, feminicide, heinous crimes involving death, heinous crimes by a criminal organization and heinous repeat offenders will not benefit from the text that comes back into force.
(Article being updated)
