At the request of the Advocacy General of the Union (AGU), the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Gilmar Mendes determined the temporary suspension of the judgment of any lawsuit that questions the legality of the presidential decree that tries to limit the access of civilians to firearms. fire.
Edited by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the first day of the current administration, the Presidential Decree No. 11,366 suspend registrations for the purchase and transfer of weapons and ammunition for restricted use by hunters, collectors, shooters and private individuals (CACs); restricts the acquisition quantities of weapons and ammunition for permitted use and suspends the granting of new registrations to collectors, shooters and hunters, as well as to new clubs and shooting schools.
With the publication of decree, Lula seeks to fulfill one of his campaign promises: to establish a more stringent gun control policy than that of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. The initiative, however, led to the filing of several actions that try to invalidate the decree, claiming that the content of the norm is unconstitutional.
Last Tuesday (14), the AGU appealed to the STF, asking the Court to recognize the constitutionality of the decree. In the action, the AGU also asked the STF to grant a preliminary decision, that is, temporary and emergency, suspending the effect of any other judicial decision of lower courts until the Court gives the final word on the legality of the text published by the federal government. .
Rapporteur of the declaratory action, Minister Gilmar Mendes justified his decision by claiming that, at least initially, it is “evident the constitutionality and legality of Decree nº 11.366”.
“In effect, it is the responsibility of the Executive [federal]under the terms of Disarmament Statuteinstitute and maintain records and registers of weapons, clubs and shooting schools and of the individuals themselves qualified by law as collectors, shooters and hunters (CACs), obviously being within the scope of their regulatory competence, by extension, the prerogative to suspend the registration of new seats in the respective cadastres and records, provided that there are relevant factual and legal reasons”, added Mendes.
The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, celebrated the preliminary decision on his personal Twitter account.
STF has just confirmed the constitutionality of President Lula’s Decree on restrictions on uncontrolled armament. Decision in the ADC proposed by the AGU. Excerpts from the decision follow: pic.twitter.com/0KB3ZeQGj7
— Flávio Dino ?? (@FlavioDino) February 16, 2023
Hours earlier, Dino had already stated that the federal government had confidence in a favorable decision by the Supreme Court.
“We are very confident that the decree and ordinance we edited are in accordance with the law and that, therefore, there is an overcoming of previous situations that were abusive and illegal. When we dialogue with the Advocacy General of the Union [AGU] was in anticipation of [obtenção da] confirmation [da constitucionalidade] of this new normative framework and which, based on the decision of the Supreme Court, will be confirmed in a new decree”, said Dino, yesterday, when talking to journalists shortly before participating in an event in São Paulo.
Individuals
A survey that the Igarapé and Sou da Paz institutes released this week points out that the number of weapons in private civilian and military collections more than doubled and reached almost 3 million in the period from 2019 to 2022.
In his decision, Minister Gilmar Mendes alludes to what he classified as a “trend of vertiginous flexibility in the norms of access to firearms and ammunition in Brazil”, indicating that Decree n. 11,366 is intended to “establish a sort of brake on this trend while discussing new regulation” of rules for the sale and acquisition of weapons.
