The Attorney General’s Office (AGU) filed an appeal with the Federal Court against the decision that, last week, responded to a request by former attorney Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos) and ordered the suspension of the investigation by the Federal Court of Auditors (Tribunal de Contas da União). TCU) on per diems, tickets and gratuities to members of the Lava Jato task force in Curitiba.
The appeal of the AGU, constitutional representative of the Court of Auditors, was presented to the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF-4) this Tuesday (7th).
In the play, to which the CNN had access, the institution says that there are no irregularities in the procedure opened by the TCU and argues that the suspension of the investigation prevents, in practice, “the full exercise of the Powers constitutionally guaranteed” to the Court of Auditors.
“It is not too much to remember that the function of judging the accounts of those responsible for public money is attributed by the Constitution exclusively to the TCU”, writes the AGU.
According to the AGU, the investigative procedure is in a preliminary stage and that, so far, there has been no manifestation of the TCU regarding the merits of the case, which has as its scope suspected irregularities and damage to public coffers with the payment of R $2.557 million in per diems and tickets to five Lava Jato prosecutors from 2014 to 2021.
In the appeal to the TRF-4, the AGU says that the request made by Dallagnol and answered by the federal judge Augusto César Pansini Gonçalves, of the 6th Federal Court of Curitiba, could generate a “harmful multiplier effect”.
According to the AGU, the decision in favor of the former Lava Jato attorney may not only “paralyze the external control activities that are responsible for the recovery of large amounts from the public coffers”, but also create a precedent that, in practice, can make with that the TCU starts to receive, “at all times”, “judicial determinations in the sense of impeding the processing and judgment of external control procedures”.
In the appeal, the AGU also claims that Dallagnol’s request was intended to “disrupt” the progress of the process, since the allegations he presented to the Federal Court have not yet been analyzed by the TCU.
“The mere participation in the process of external control causes no real or potential harm to the author, much less to any other citizen who is in a similar situation, since they will have the opportunity to fully exercise the right of defense and even claim nullities or any other another matter”, says the AGU.
For the AGU, “there is no need to talk about injury or threat of injury to individual rights only by calling the person responsible to the case to present a defense in the face of alleged irregularity causing damage to the treasury”.
Decision
On Friday (3), the Federal Court of Paraná suspended the case against Dallagnol at the TCU, on the grounds that “there are reasonable indications that special accounting is illegal”.
Federal judge Augusto César Pansini Gonçalves, of the 6th Federal Court of Curitiba, stated that the then Lava Jato attorney did not act as an expense officer or devised a model for paying the daily allowances and tickets for the task force members.
In the magistrate’s assessment, the rapporteur of the accounting at the TCU, Minister Bruno Dantas, disregarded the finding of court technicians regarding the need for new steps, “as it was ruthlessly failed to carry out the hearings of several agents absolutely fundamental for the proper assessment of alleged irregularities.
Also according to Gonçalves, the court’s urgency in judging the accounting will make it impossible to recognize “vices and improprieties” in the citation of the former prosecutor, as well as causing serious damage to Dallagnol’s reputation.
Dallagnol comments on the decision
In an interview with CNN , on Friday (3), Dallagnol said he was “paying the price of fighting corruption”. According to him, the “political system wants revenge so that no one else dares to face it in the future”.
According to him, the TCU instituted a procedure against the technical area seeking to place the costs of a task force on the former attorneys.
“The TCU minister sought to link me to this case when I did not authorize the per diems, I did not ask for the per diems and I was not responsible for this model. That’s why we took all this to court,” he said.
On the appeal filed by the AGU, this Wednesday (8), the former prosecutor has not yet commented.
Source: CNN Brasil
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