Key Points
- Brazil’s Christmas pardon now blocks any shortcut out of jail for Jair Bolsonaro and those convicted over the 8 January riots.
- The decree mixes strict rules for coup-related and corruption crimes with softer treatment for elderly, sick and vulnerable prisoners.
- Supporters say it protects democracy; critics see the government using clemency to sideline its main rival.
Every December, Brazil’s president signs a Christmas pardon that can forgive or reduce prison sentences for some inmates. It is meant to ease pressure on a crowded prison system, not to free dangerous people.
This year, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the pardon has become a tool in the long fight between Lula and his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
The new decree proposed by the government rules out any relief for crimes against the democratic order and for the storming of Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace on 8 January 2023.
Leaders of criminal gangs, prisoners in maximum-security units, and those convicted of corruption, abuse of authority, torture, terrorism or racism are also excluded.
At the same time, the measure opens the door for older prisoners, pregnant women, mothers of minors, people with disabilities and those with serious illnesses. For them, judges will be able to shorten sentences or end them.
For Bolsonaro, sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for trying to stay in power after losing the 2022 election, the message is blunt. Neither individual grace, nor the collective Christmas pardon, nor a future amnesty in Congress will cover coup-related crimes.
His former aide and state’s witness Mauro Cid is also shut out because the text bars benefits for collaborators. There is a twist that many on the right see as hypocrisy.
In 2022, Bolsonaro used his own Christmas decree to help security agents accused over the Carandiru prison massacre, drawing outrage from the left. Today, Lula uses the same constitutional power to keep his main political opponent and many supporters locked in.