RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rodrigo Maia, the Chamber President, raised the prospect of punishment a few hours after statements in which President Jair Bolsonaro’s son advocates a new AI-5 (Institutional Act Number Five – the harshest of all the dictatorship’s institutional decrees, giving the president almost unlimited powers).
In a statement, Maia said that the “reiterated praise of instruments of the dictatorship is punishable by the tools available to Brazilian democratic institutions”.
Maia adds that Brazil “will never return to the years of lead”. He recalls that Eduardo earned his mandate by popular vote and, upon taking office, “vowed to respect the 1988 Constitution”.
“It was this Constitution, Brazil’s longest-lasting Magna Carta, that made the country regain its institutional and democratic normalcy,” Maia said.
“The Charter of ’88 abhors, criminalizes and provides the means to punish any groups or citizens who violate its principles – and institutional acts violate the principles and foundations of our Constitution”.
The greatest punishment, expulsion, depends on the opposition gaining support in the ranks of the Ethics Council. Of the 21 seats there, the parties that claim to be against the government hold only six, while PSL, Eduardo’s party, has 2 members.
“The issue is political. Let’s see how the center will react to this,” said Ivan Valente, the PSL party leader in the Chamber.
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro reacted angrily to the attempt to punish his brother. “The mere attempt to terminate the mandate of a deputy FOR SPEAKING is the AI-6 itself (Institutional Act Number Six -an act of the dictatorship in which expulsion was enforced and crimes against national security were tried by Military Courts),” he said on his social media this Friday, November 1st.
The motion for Eduardo’s expulsion from the Lower House is not the first for the family. As a federal deputy, Jair Bolsonaro was the target of complaints over controversial statements; however, the proceedings always stalled.
The rules of the Chamber allow an investigation of deputies over statements that qualify as a breach of decorum. Any punishment, however, will depend on the political powers that sustain it.
On Wednesday, October 30th, for instance, the Ethics Council opened a proceeding against André Janones. The request was made by Solidariedade party in reaction to a live broadcast by the deputy on social media in which he declared that he would expose the “scoundrels and scumbags in the Chamber”.
The ritual of complaints over an alleged breach of parliamentary decorum is not simple.
When the motion reaches the Council, its Chair, Deputy Juscelino Filho, chooses the rapporteur for the case from a three-name list. The rapporteur cannot come from the same state or party as Eduardo, nor from the party that brought the action against the deputy.
Thereafter, a ten-working day period begins to run for the submission of an opinion, which may be either to dismiss or to proceed with the case.
Should the case proceed, the accused deputy must be served in person in order to present his defense in writing. Subsequently, the Council has an average of 40 working days in which to gather evidence and take statements.
Finally, the rapporteur has ten more days to cast his vote, recommending expulsion, or a milder punishment, or the dismissal of the complaint.
Whatever the result, the request for expulsion must pass through the full Chamber of Deputies for any deputy to be so punished.
A simple majority is required for approval in the Council, but an absolute majority in the full Chamber (257 votes out of 513 deputies) is required).
Maia’s remonstration was more incisive than the tone adopted by the president of the National Congress, Senator Davi Alcolumbre, who said it was “absurd” for a political official like Eduardo, “fruit of the democratic system”, to make some kind of anti-democratic incitement.
“And this affront to the Constitution is unacceptable,” he said. Alcolumbre, who is also president of the Senate, said that “there is no room to talk about authoritarian regression”.
There is no law that specifically criminalizes the praise of the military dictatorship. But, according to deputy prosecutor general Luiza Frischeisen, statements in defense of the military regime can be classified as a crime under the National Security Act (Law 7,170/83), the Liability Crimes Act (Law 1,079/50) and Article 287 in the Criminal Code.
A bill criminalizing the praise of the military dictatorship is being discussed in the Chamber. Submitted in 2015 by Wadson Ribeiro, it is pending the opinion of the rapporteur in the Chamber’s Committee on Culture.
Deputies such as Eduardo Bolsonaro and senators all enjoy parliamentary immunity. They cannot be prosecuted for opinions, words, and votes cast in the exercise of their mandate and can only be arrested if they commit a capital offense.
Source: Folhapress