Lewandowski facilitates appointment of politicians in state-owned law

Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, of the Federal Supreme Court, granted an injunction on Thursday night (16) to allow politicians to assume management positions in state-owned companies, suspending the validity of the 3-year quarantine required by the State-owned Companies Law of 2016. The injunction must undergo a new trial in the virtual plenary of the STF.

The judgment on the state-owned law began last Friday by the virtual plenary, Lewandowski was the first minister to vote. However, the trial was suspended on Saturday (11), after Minister André Mendonça asked for a review.

In the injunction, Minister Lewandowski reinforced his vote by considering unconstitutional the device that prohibits the appointment of government ministers, state or municipal secretaries to the Board of Directors and board of directors of state-owned companies. He also voted to end the three-year quarantine, required by law, for party or election campaign leaders to take up these posts. For the minister, it is enough for them to leave these functions so that they can be appointed.

According to the minister, “the allegation that the contested devices serve to reduce the risk of capture of the state-owned company by party or union political interests, a factor supposedly responsible for some notorious cases of corruption, does not hold up”.

For Lewandowski, the devices questioned in the action “prove to be inadequate or even ineffective to achieve the purpose of preventing any misuse of purpose or misuse of public resources”. He mentions that there are already laws to combat possible deviations of purpose or corruption, such as Laws 6404/1976 (Company Law) and 12813/2013 (Law on Conflict of Interests), and Law 8429/1992 (Law on Administrative Improbity ).

The minister justified the preliminary decision by the fact that the general assemblies for the election of managers of state-owned companies must be held by the end of April, with an advance notice of at least one month. “In this way, companies have a tight deadline of 3/30/2023 to submit the information.”, wrote the minister.

The decision favorable to the end of restrictions serves the interest of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who seeks to reward parties interested in supporting the government, and of left-wing parties and Centrão who want to control the management of billionaire budgets of state-owned companies. .

remember the case

The action judged by the Court was presented by the PCdoB, a historical ally of the PT, on December 28 of last year, two weeks after the approval of the changes by the Chamber. The strategy was to have a plan B to enable the appointment of politicians in case the project got stuck in the Senate, as it did.

At the end of last year, during the transition of government, on the same day that Lula announced the appointment of former minister Aloizio Mercadante – a historical figure of the PT who, in last year’s election campaign, was involved in the formulation of the government plan – for the presidency of the BNDES, the Chamber approved a bill to reduce the quarantine period for party leaders or campaign members from 3 years to 30 days.

Due to the bad repercussion of the maneuver in the market, the proposal stalled in the Senate. An eventual overthrow of the rule by the STF would save the government from political negotiations to make the change via Congress, which, in turn, would get rid of the wear and tear of loosening the law.

Lula sent opinions favorable to the end of restrictions. The Special Secretariat for Legal Affairs of the Civil House argued that the restrictions violate proportionality and reasonableness by presuming the bad faith of ministers, secretaries or party leaders.