Brazil’s Supreme Court suspends Provisional Measure hindering removal of content on the Internet

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice Rosa Weber on Tuesday (14) suspended in its entirety the Provisional Measure (PM) amending the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet. The PM was issued by President Jair Bolsonaro on September 6 and limits the removal of content from social networks.

The preliminary injunction was granted in a Direct Unconstitutionality Lawsuit brought by the PSB party, and must be confirmed by the full Court.

In her ruling, the Justice remarked that the Judiciary’s interference should be “absolutely exceptional,” but said she understood that, in the Provisional Measure case, “we are faced with a scenario in which the abuse of the President’s normative power is apparently configured.”

According to the Justice, the matter covered by the PM implies a restriction of rights and, therefore, could only be changed by means of a statute, created in the National Congress, “for issues related to democratic legitimacy, for greater transparency, for deliberative quality, for allowing the participation of civil society and for the constitutional provision of congressional law.”

“I therefore consider the impracticability of the provision, by means of a provisional measure, of matters pertaining to fundamental rights and guarantees. And it cannot be claimed that the provisional measure under review, instead of restricting, merely disciplines the exercise of individual rights on social networks, maximizing their protection, which would be lawful by means of such normative type,” the Justice said in the ruling.

Bolsonaro signed the MP on the eve of the September 7 protests as a gesture to Bolsonarist digital militancy, which has been the target of content and account removal under the accusation of spreading false content.

The MP submitted to Congress by the President hinders the actions of networks in deleting information shared by users who violate the platforms’ terms of use. Earlier in the day of the STF ruling, Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG) decided to return the Provisional Measure, preventing it from being analyzed by Congress. His justification is that the PM does not meet the constitutional prerequisites for this extraordinary proceeding.