In an appeal presented to Minister Flávio Dino, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), this Friday morning (27), the Chamber of Deputies requested a review of the decision that ordered the suspension of the payment of around R$ 4.2 billion in committee amendments.
The 22-page petition is signed by lawyer Jules Michelet Pereira Queiroz e Silva, who represents the Chamber. In the document, he refutes the action proposed by the PSOL and Novo parties and the entities Associação Contas Abertas, Transparência Brasil and Transparência Internacional, which claimed, among other issues, that the indication of more than 5.4 thousand amendments would have occurred without the approval of the commissions and during the period in which the collegiate meetings had been suspended by the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), between the 12th and 20th of December.
“With due respect, the petitioners’ arguments do not correspond to the truth and reveal a profound lack of knowledge of the budgetary legislative process. This imprecise and decontextualized information prevents the correct assessment and valuation of the facts”, says the petition.
In the appeal, the Chamber’s defense maintains that the amendments were approved by the committees throughout the legislative cycle and that document No. 1064, which would list “5,449 amendments”, refers to the indication of the recipient projects.
“The approval of amendments by the committees takes place based on suggestions made by parliamentarians and formally approved by the collegiate bodies. After approval and sanction, indications are made to the Executive Branch which, in accordance with the LDO [Lei de Diretrizes Orçamentárias] for the 2024 financial year, they are not binding”, argues the defense of the Legislative House. In the petition, the lawyer also cites examples and informs the link where the minutes of deliberations on the amendments are recorded.
Regarding the suspension of the committees’ activities between December 12th and 20th, the Chamber’s defense denied that it would be a strategy to prevent the deliberations of the collegiate bodies, as the authors of the action claim. “This suspension took place to enable a concentrated effort on proposals to control the Executive Branch’s spending, which would be voted on by the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.”
On Thursday night (26), in a statement to the press, the president of the Chamber of Deputies defended that the release of parliamentary amendments has complied with criteria established by the Judiciary and the agreements signed between Executive and Legislative.
