Prosecutors of the Republic criticized this Wednesday (18) amendments presented to the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) on the end of compulsory retirement as a disciplinary punishment. The text is on the agenda of the CCJ (Commission for Constitution, Justice and Citizenship).
The ANPR (National Association of Public Prosecutors) stated, in a public note, that suggestions for addendums to the proposal could advance “on the core of the constitutional guarantee of the lifetime of members of the judiciary”.
The PEC was authored by the then senator, now minister of the (Supreme Federal Court). The proposal vetoes the possibility of granting compulsory retirement to magistrates and members of the Public Ministry as a sanction for disciplinary infractions.
On Monday (16), Dino gave a decision in court stating that .
In Congress, the rapporteur, senator (PSD-MA), voted in favor of the text, with editorial amendments. Two of them provide for the application of the punishment of loss of position in case of serious misconduct, regardless of a final court ruling.
The ANPR is against these changes and defends the maintenance of the requirement for a final judgment (that is, a judicial decision that can no longer be appealed) to definitively break the relationship between members of the Public Ministry and the Judiciary.
Today, the Constitution establishes as a rule that magistrates, prosecutors and prosecutors have the right to life, and can only lose their position by decision of the court to which the judge is bound or precisely by a final and unappealable decision.
According to ANPR, the amendments affect the “constitutional structure designed to ensure the functional independence of judges and members of the Public Ministry, worryingly increasing the exposure of these careers to external pressure and undue interference”.
The association says that this is not a corporatist debate or in defense of career-only prerogatives, but rather the preservation of “structural guarantees aimed at protecting the democratic order itself”. The weakening of these guarantees goes beyond prosecutors, they say.
“It affects, above all, society, which depends on a Judiciary and a Public Ministry free from political, economic or circumstantial constraints to act in defense of legality, the democratic regime and fundamental rights”, they say in the note.
The entity also states that the erosion of this guarantee compromises decision-making independence and the fight against organized crime, corruption and deviations carried out by power structures and echoes Brazilian history, citing the example of the military dictatorship.
“One of the most emblematic moments of the suppression of lifetime tenure and other institutional protections occurred with the issuance of institutional act no. 5, in 1968, a milestone in the most severe period of the authoritarian regime then established.”
