STF decides that law that determines cancellation of precatories is unconstitutional

The Federal Supreme Court ruled, this Thursday (30), that a 2017 law, determining the cancellation of federal precatories and Small Value Requisitions (RPVs) that had not been collected by the creditor and had been deposited for more than two years, it is unconstitutional.

By 6 votes to 5, the ministers understood that this cancellation without the creditor’s prior knowledge violates the Constitution.

The rapporteur of the case, Minister Rosa Weber, voted in favor of the action and argued that “the law, by moving the prior knowledge and the exercise of the adversary to a moment after the automatic cancellation, enshrines a procedure that violates the Constitution”.

Ministers Dias Toffoli, Alexandre de Moraes, Edson Fachin, Cármen Lúcia and Ricardo Lewandowski agreed with the rapporteur.

The divergence was initiated by minister Gilmar Mendes, who was partially in favor of the action, but voted in the sense that the cancellation can, in fact, occur, but only after the creditor is summoned to manifest.

Gilmar’s understanding was followed by ministers Luís Roberto Barroso, André Mendonça, Nunes Marques and Luiz Fux.

The action was presented by the PDT in 2017. The questioned law was sanctioned by Eunício Oliveira (MDB-CE), then president of the Senate and at the time occupying the position of president of the Republic on an interim basis because of the trip of then president Michel Temer to Europe.

By law, the resources of the precatories and RPVs deposited for more than two years and not withdrawn by the creditors should return to the public coffers. The text dealt only with federal payments.

Precatórios are debts after definitive judicial convictions. The RPV, on the other hand, is the type of request for payment of an amount in which the public entity was convicted through a judicial process.