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Gilmar criticizes lawsuits close to elections and defends immunity for candidates

Minister Gilmar Mendes, dean of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), criticized, this Wednesday (9), decisions of the Justice that are given on the eve of the elections.

The minister defended that the National Congress analyze a kind of “immunity” for candidates, as the electoral law provides for voters, to avoid this type of operation, which can influence the population’s perception of candidates.

A notorious critic of the actions of the late Lava Jato task force in Curitiba, Gilmar called the operation a “sad school in Curitiba” and said that this type of actions by the Judiciary on the eve of the elections end up “contaminating even the higher courts”.

The dean of the STF cited a decision by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) that removed the governor of Alagoas, Paulo Dantas (MDB), a few days away from the second round of the election. The removal was reviewed by the STF, which returned the position to the emedebista – who ended up re-elected.

“It has unfortunately become a practice for judicial police actions engendered on the eve of an election and that end up defining the electoral destiny of that target at that moment. Anyone can be the target of this type of action. There we have the various examples perpetrated from the sad school in Curitiba, in which this now senator Moro was a teacher, who operated actions on the eve of the elections”, said Gilmar, citing the case of lawsuits and judicial decisions close to the elections against the president-elect Lula, the toucans Beto Richa and Marconi Perillo and the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes.

“The STJ on the eve of the second round determined measures to remove the governor of Alagoas. See that this ends up contaminating even the higher courts. I imagine that the National Congress, in good time, will have to define some immunities, as well as for voters, also for candidates, except in cases of flagrante delicto, because otherwise this will continue to be encouraged”, added the minister.

Gilmar Mendes’ statements were given at an event of public prosecutors and lawyers, Conpprev (National Congress of Federal Public Prosecutors and Lawyers).

Gilmar Mendes still rebutted criticism of the changes made to the Administrative Misconduct Law and said that many of the actions presented against public managers and candidates had a political bias.

“This is easy to see in political experience, it is enough to say that someone is in a civil investigation of improbity to say that there is something wrong with him”, said the minister.

The dean of the STF said that there were “several cases of political agents who, regardless of political color, were targets of improbity actions predestined to failure, supported by nothing more than a well-told story or even, when based on some probative material, curiously proposed in the context of electoral dispute and then, invariably, filed after the election, at which time the damage to the political reputation has already been irreversibly consummated”.

In 2021, Congress amended the Administrative Improbity Law, excluding from the law the act of culpable improbity (that is, when the intention of the public agent to commit this act is not proven).

The STF decided this year that these changes made by Congress should be applied to cases that are still pending in court.

This means that an agent or former public agent who has been convicted in the 1st Instance for an act of culpable administrative impropriety (that is, without having demonstrated his intention to commit this act) can appeal to Justice and be judged from of this modification of the law, which extinguished this crime.

Source: CNN Brasil

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