The PSOL’s Direct Action of Unconstitutionality that led to the suspension of mandatory parliamentary amendments aims to return control over the execution of the public budget to the Executive, he explained to Brazil Agency one of the authors of the action, Doctor of Law Rafael Valim. 
The expert stated that the mandatory amendments, created from 2015 during Eduardo Cunha’s presidency in the Chamber of Deputies, violate the core of the Constitution, Article 60, paragraph 4, which is a permanent clause, by transferring part of the execution of the Union Budget to the National Congress.
“The Legislature has practically a third of the free revenues that it can spend according to its interests, according to its government plan. The Legislature appropriated this revenue and it defines where to use it”, argued Rafael Valim, also director of the Institute for Reform of Relations between State and Business (IREE)
For the lawyer, the debate about the action in the press is, in part, mistaken, and that the main issue is not the transparency and traceability of resources, but rather the imposition of the amendments themselves, which removed control over part of the Budget from the Executive, violating the separation of powers.
“The original Constitution did not provide for the imposition of parliamentary amendments. Parliamentary amendments were merely indicative and the Executive had the discretion to execute them or not. In other words, the execution of parliamentary amendments was subject to the Executive’s scrutiny. What this action of ours aims to restore is the original model of the Constitution,” he explained.
Individual or bench mandatory amendments are the budget resources that the Executive is obliged to execute based on the indication of parliamentarians and benches.
Semi-presidentialism
The document that the PSOL filed with the Federal Supreme Court (STF) questions that these amendments created, in practice, a semi-presidential regime in Brazil, which “was never desired by the Constituent Assembly, incompatible with our constitutional system and antagonistic to the unchanging clauses of our Federal Constitution”.
According to the ADI, the imposition of the amendments captured the budget and blocked the efficient planning and coordination of public policies. “It hinders fiscal adjustment, the planning and execution of public policies and the balancing of accounts,” says the document.
The action also highlights that the dispersion of the Budget across municipalities is so intense that “it makes preventive, concomitant and subsequent control over public spending practically impossible”.
Injunction
The minister of the STF Flávio Dino partially accepted the ADI and ordered the suspension of payment of amendments until an agreement between the Executive and Legislative branches creates measures for transparency, efficiency and traceability of resources.
Flávio Dino, however, did not reject the main object of the action, which questions the constitutionality of the imposition of these amendments. “The analysis of the other questions raised in the initial petition, including the requested definitive and total elimination of the imposition amendments due to incurable unconstitutionality, will be carried out after the manifestations provided for by law, when the final decision is made”, said the minister in the ruling.
Rafael Valim believes that Flávio Dino’s decision goes far beyond the traceability or transparency of the amendments. “He says the following: this imposition that has been established over the last few years can never be seen as absolute. The deputies and senators go there and indicate where they want to spend and the Executive simply watches what happens and pays. It can’t be like that,” he explained.
For the expert who helped write the lawsuit, the injunction issued by Minister Flávio Dino indicates that parliamentary amendments must comply with the Executive’s planning. “This imposition now has to be in accordance with the construction, the planning, the multi-year plan, the planning that the Executive itself made. In other words, with those aspirations that were approved at the polls,” he added.
Legislative
The injunction of Minister Flávio Dino, confirmed this Friday (16) by the majority of the STFhad an immediate reaction from the National Congress. Also on Wednesday (14), the Joint Budget Committee (CMO) rejected the provisional measure that allocates R$1.3 billion in credit to the Judiciary.
The presidents of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD/MG), of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP/AL), and 11 parties, including PT, MDB, PSDB, PDT, PSB and PP, questioned Flávio Dino’s decision claiming that it causes immediate harm to the public interest.
“The decisions cause irreparable damage to the public economy, health, security and the legal order itself, in addition to blatantly violating the separation of powers,” the parties said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Congressman Arthur Lira had already criticized decisions against parliamentary amendments. “It is always good to remember that the Budget does not belong to the Executive. The Budget is voted on by Congress, which is why it is law. Without the approval of Parliament, it has no constitutional validity,” he stated.
