CGU annuls Bolsonaro’s act that limited server speeches – 01/27/2023 – Politics

The CGU (Comptroller General of the Union) revoked an act of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government that limited criticism and political manifestations of federal public servants. The annulment was a request from the civil service career unions and a promise from the current minister, Vinícius Carvalho.

“[A nota] established an understanding in the sense of limiting the manifestation of public agents”, said Carvalho during his inauguration speech, at the beginning of the month. According to him, this was an “affront to the free expression of thought”.

Servers called Bolsonaro’s act a “gag note”. The technical note was published by former CGU Minister Wagner Rosário in 2020.

In one of the excerpts, the text said that the “publication by the public servant of opinions about conflicts or internal matters, or manifestations critical of the body to which he belongs, in virtual communication vehicles, are conducts subject to disciplinary investigation”.

In addition, it was foreseen that “behaviours by civil servants that bring negative repercussions to the image and credibility of their institution” could be classified as non-compliance with the law with rules for civil servants.

Fonacate (Permanent National Forum for State Careers), which brings together 37 state careers associations and unions, published a document in which it said that the Bolsonaro government’s measures violated the freedom of expression of civil servants and represented institutional harassment.

At the time, the CGU said the standards were made in light of recent changes in working conditions and technological advances. The note was published amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the Bolsonaro administration, the body also stated that the guidelines did not refer to “the possible treatment that should be given to political opinions or about the government by some public agent”.

For this reason, Rosário’s team argued that it was not censorship. “The internet is not — and cannot be — a territory without law, in which the public agent can convey information that compromises the credibility of the institutions”, justified the control body.

By revoking the technical note, the portfolio commanded by Carvalho reported that the annulment was carried out in the face of “controversies surrounding possible interpretations resulting from the document that could cause damage to the freedom of expression of public agents”.

According to the CGU, no open processes or sanctions were found based on the technical note issued by the Bolsonaro administration.

To escape punishment, civil servants began to use anonymous or fake profiles on social networks to criticize acts and decisions of the bodies in which they work.

An example is the profile called “O Fiscal do Ibama” on Twitter. The purpose of the page is “dissemination and supervision of the management of federal environmental agencies and the dismantling of environmental policies”.

“The Historical Heritage Inspector” is another social network profile that was created during the validity of the technical note from the CGU in Rosário.

FGV-SP professor of public administration and government, Gabriela Lotta, points out that the former president’s management act “was the apex of a censorship process that was experienced in several organizations since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government”.

The first rehearsal was at ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute). Then, he explained, they tried to replicate it at Ipea (Institute for Applied Economic Research).

“Little by little, this process grew in different bodies until the CGU institutionalized it in this gag decree, which came into effect in a generalized way”, he said.

For Lotta, the regulation “was one of the instruments of oppression that the Bolsonaro government used against public servants and which aimed to reduce their ability to create barriers to the government’s destruction agenda”.

“Censorship inhibited public servants, for example, from giving interviews or posting information denouncing illegalities or wrong government decisions. It ended up creating a climate of fear and even self-censorship, with civil servants afraid of retaliation,” he added.