The Senate installed this Friday (11) the commission of jurists to update and modernize the Impeachment Actof 1950. The norm defines the crimes of responsibility and regulates the process of judgment of authorities that incur in these practices.
Operation
The commission will have 180 days to present a study and a draft on the topic. After being signed by one or more parliamentarians, the text is processed as a bill and, if approved by the Senate, it will be analyzed by the Chamber of Deputies. After these stages have been overcome, the proposal goes to the President of the Republic for sanction.
Under the presidency of the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Ricardo Lewandowski, who in 2016 presided over the session that resulted in the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (PT), the collegiate comprises 11 jurists. The group will not receive remuneration, but the expenses with logistics generated during the functioning of the commission will be paid by the Senate.
“This is very important for the country, a modernization of a fundamental law for today, so that we can have the best discipline possible in relation to an institute that was recently used more than once in Brazil and that, obviously, , it needs to be adapted above all to the Constitution of 1988, which came well after its edition in the 1950s”, said Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco.
outdated law
According to the justification of the act that created the commission, edited by the president of the Senate, the Impeachment Law, partially approved by the Federal Constitution of 1988, is outdated. “Considering that the problems of Law nº 1.079/50, elaborated during the validity of the 1946 Charter, have already been pointed out on several occasions by the doctrine and jurisprudence as a source of institutional instability, thus demanding its complete revision”, emphasizes the document.
In the understanding of Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, the mismatch of the norm with the so-called Citizen Constitution of 1988 is explicit especially with regard to due process of law, the right to ample defense and the defendant’s contradictory. For the minister, the reasonable duration of the process is also a point to be considered by the commission.
Recalling the experience of having presided over the Senate stage of the process that resulted in the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff, the minister recalled that because it was a “poor” rule, in terms of procedures, in that case he had to bring together the leaders of the Home to carry out an “ad hoc” procedure, that is, suitable for that moment. At the time, the minister pointed out, the conduct was based on part of the regulations of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the precedents of the Federal Supreme Court, precepts of the Jury Court, provided for in the Criminal Procedure Code and the experience of the former President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992.
Who is on the Jurists Committee:
– Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, Minister of the Federal Supreme Court;
– Antonio Anastasia, Minister of the Federal Audit Court;
– Rogério Schietti Cruz, Minister of the Superior Court of Justice;
– Fabiano Silveira, former Minister of the Comptroller General of the Union;
– Marcus Vinícius Coêlho, former president of the Brazilian Bar Association;
– Heleno Torres, jurist;
– Gregório Assagra de Almeida, jurist;
– Maurício Campos Júnior, lawyer;
– Carlos Eduardo Frazão do Amaral, lawyer;
– Fabiane Pereira de Oliveira, advisor to the STF;
– Luiz Fernando Bandeira de Mello Filho, counselor of the National Council of Justice.
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