The federal deputy (PL-MG) was acquitted of collective moral damages due to a transphobic speech using a wig in the Chamber plenary, in 2023.
In a unanimous decision, the 4th Civil Panel of the TJDFT (Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories) defended parliamentary immunity. The judges stated that the inviolability of opinions, words and votes is guaranteed by the Constitution when exercising their mandate.
The magistrates said that it is not up to the Judiciary to punish Nikolas for the episode, regardless of the transphobic content of the act carried out by the deputy.
Nikolas celebrated the decision on social media. “Acquitted of the wig conviction. Nikole is right. Great day”, he wrote in a post on X, citing the nickname he used in the speech.
Abrafh (Brazilian Association of Same-sex Families) and the National LGBTI Alliance, authors of the action, said they will appeal. “Discrimination and any form cannot prevail in a democratic country like Brazil, whose Constitution is clear in stating that we are all equal before the law, without distinction of any kind”, they wrote in a note sent to UOL.
Remember the case
On March 8, 2023, Nikolas put on a blonde wig to speak in the House gallery. He said he “feels like a woman”, is “deputy Nikole” and “has a place to speak”.
“Women are losing their space to men who feel like women. To give you an idea of how dangerous this is, they are trying to impose a reality that is not reality,” said the deputy at the time.
The parliamentarian also criticized feminism, stating that women owe nothing to the movement which, according to him, “exalts women who have never done anything for women”. Nikolas ended his speech by praising women who have children and start families.
Nikolas was convicted in the first instance, and the plaintiffs requested compensation of R$5 million. They claimed that “the statements were broadcast throughout the country” and replicated “thousands of times on the most diverse social networks”. They also wanted the deputy’s social networks to be taken down and for him to recant.
The resources would be allocated to the Diffuse Rights Fund with the purpose of repairing “damage caused to the environment, the consumer, goods and rights of artistic, aesthetic, historical, tourist, landscape value, by violation of the economic order and other diffuse and collective interests”.
The deputy’s defense, however, claimed parliamentary immunity and denied hate speech. Nikolas’ lawyers stated that the Constitution guarantees that parliamentarians express themselves freely, not necessarily formally, and even through gestures and equipment, if they wish. According to them, the speech did not constitute hate speech nor did it encourage anyone to attack or vilify the community.
First instance judge assessed that Nikolas incited criminal conduct. “In these circumstances, it is the duty of the Judiciary, once provoked, to weigh the values in the specific case, to assess whether the speech was abusive in form and/or content, and whether freedom of expression or the protection of the rights of those who claim to have been victims of the offense should prevail”, said Priscila Faria da Silva.
However, the court denied the request for retraction and removal of the deputy’s social networks from the air.. “On the other hand, it is not appropriate to require the party to express a point of view with which it does not agree”, argued the judge, stating that the retraction “would represent an undue incursion into the sphere of the defendant’s right to freedom of expression”.
