The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) reported having called the courts to ensure that all cultural events financed by the Rouanet Law can demand a health passport at the entrance that proves immunization against Covid-19.
In the public civil action, prosecutor Ana Carolina Roman asks for an injunction (provisional decision) to suspend the ordinance published this week by the Secretariat of Culture. The rule prohibits the requirement of a passport in events sponsored by the Rouanet Law, the main federal instrument for financing cultural projects.
Under the ordinance, projects that apply for approval by the Rouanet Law cannot require proof of vaccination for entry by the public, under penalty of failure and fine.
In the initial petition, the MPF says that the norm is “out of step with what is expected from public bodies in the current epidemiological scenario”. The agency argues that only the local Health departments would be able to determine the adoption or not of sanitary measures at cultural events.
For the MPF, health passports do not restrict individual freedoms, as they are “indeeds for the protection of the community and the maintenance of public health, values of social relevance that cannot be supplanted by expectations of a personal nature”, wrote the prosecutor Ana Carolina Roman.
In addition to the suspension of the ordinance, the agency asks the Court to prevent the Union “from issuing new rules that may hinder the implementation of sanitary restrictions in cultural events.”
After the ordinance was edited, the Special Secretary for Culture, Mário Frias, said that requiring proof of vaccination for entry to events violates individual freedom, and that the norm signed by him “aims to ensure that authoritarian and discriminatory measures are not financed with federal public money and violate the most basic rights of our civilization”.
The case must be analyzed by the 3rd Federal Civil Court of the Federal District.
Under the Culture Incentive Law (Law 8313/1991), better known as the Rouanet Law, companies and individuals can sponsor shows – exhibitions, shows, books, museums, galleries and various other forms of cultural expression – and deduct the total amount or partial income tax support. Sponsored projects must be approved in a specific selection.
Reference: CNN Brasil
