The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) filed a petition with the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to make unconstitutional the law passed by the City Council of Porto Alegre (RS) that instituted January 8 as “Patriot’s Day” in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul . It never hurts to remember that it was on January 8, 2023 that Bolsonarist coup plotters attacked the buildings of the National Congress, the Planalto Palace and the headquarters of the Supreme Court itself.
The PGR’s request was signed by chief prosecutor Carlos Frederico Santos, coordinator of the Strategic Group to Combat Anti-Democratic Acts (GCAA). The group was created in response to the coup, and was launched three days after the attacks in Brasilia.
In the request to the Supreme Court, the PGR states that the law “correlates and links this important civic value (patriotism) to the anti-democratic acts and vandalism that occurred on that date, with the disguised objective of exalting and commemorating practices that directly and forcefully attacked against the Brazilian democratic regime”.
In addition to taking the value of the law passed by the Porto Alegre legislature, the PGR intends that the Supreme Court create a legal thesis to recognize the unconstitutionality of acts of the public power in general that stimulate or encourage commemoration of the coup acts of January 8, 2023.
“It is inadmissible to draft immoral and anti-republican laws, whose purpose is to exalt and commemorate the practice of acts contrary to the Democratic State of Law. of the law by the competent authorities”, continues the petition.
This Saturday (26), the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, said he believed that the fall of the law “is a matter of time”. In a post on X (former Twitter), Dino said that the legislation “offends the principles of morality, the republican form, the representative system and the democratic regime”.
Can a law honor a date of perpetration of crimes, such as January 8? Even more associating crimes with patriotism? From the perspective of Constitutional Law, the answer is very clear. The law affronts the principles of morality, the republican form, the system…
— Flávio Dino 🇺🇸 (@FlavioDino) August 26, 2023
:: Sakamoto: Porto Alegre celebrates coup bandit by making 8/1 Patriot’s Day ::
According to the G1 website, the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) will make a similar request to the STF. “The Advocacy General is also preparing a new action to be filed next week at the Supreme Court through which it will also question flagrantly unconstitutional aspects of the law approved by the legislature of Rio Grande do Sul”, says sent by the AGU to the website.
The Porto Alegre City Council stated that it was not notified by the Justice on the subject, and that, if applicable, court decisions will be complied with. “There are already projects being processed in the legislature, which aim to change or revoke the law in question. In any case, if there are injunctions or any other legal instruments, the Chamber will act to comply with them and to collaborate in the construction of collective, democratic and legal solutions to the question”, says an official note.
Councilor who proposed the law was impeached
The initiative for proposing the law was taken by Bolsonarist councilor and criminal police officer Alexandre Bobadra (PL) who, to be approved, had the inaction of Mayor Sebastião Melo (MDB), also a first-time ally of Bolsonarism.
The proposal passed through permanent committees of the House in the second quarter of 2023 and went on to be sanctioned by the mayor in June. Melo remained silent and, thus, the text returned to the Chamber and, in the hands of its president, Hamilton Sossmeier (PTB), ended up enacted.
What would already be embarrassing in itself, increased with the fact that Bobadra had his mandate revoked in the same month by the Regional Electoral Court of Rio Grande do Sul (TRE-RS). By five votes against one, the court accepted the Electoral Judicial Investigation Action (AIJE) presented by three former candidates from the punished councilor’s own party.
They accused Bobadra of committing abuse of economic power in the 2020 elections, “due to the concentration of resources from the Special Campaign Financing Fund (…), to the detriment of the other candidates”. At the time, the accused and his accusers were running for the PSL. The proponent was revoked, but his proposal continued to be processed.
As if that were not enough, everything became even more embarrassing because, in June, the same Sossmeier enacted Law No. 13,496. She named the 8th of January as the Day in Defense of Democracy, already included in the Calendar of Commemorative Dates and Awareness of Porto Alegre. The project was presented by councilor Aldacir Oliboni (PT).
Editing: Rodrigo Chagas
