Lula vetoes main point of the time frame

Indigenous cause

Lula vetoed exactly the articles that established the limits of demarcations in 1988

Brasilia DF) – President Lula (PT) decided to partially veto, this Friday (20), the Marco Temporal bill for the demarcation of territories in Brazil. The text was approved by the Chamber in May and by the Senate in September.

According to the proposal, defended by ruralists, indigenous people would only have the right to land that was in their possession on October 5, 1988, the date of promulgation of the Federal Constitution. In the week that the Senate approved the PL, however, the Federal Supreme Court declared the thesis unconstitutional.

Lula vetoed exactly the articles that established the limits of demarcations in 1988 – in other words, he blocked the main point of the project. He, however, maintained the provisions “that respect the Constitution”, according to the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha.

“Today I vetoed several articles of Bill 2903/2023, alongside minister Sonia Guajajara and ministers Alexandre Padilha and Jorge Messias, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision on the topic”, announced the president on social media. “Let’s talk and continue working so that we have, as we have today, legal security and also to respect the rights of original peoples.”

“President Lula complied with what was decided by the Federal Supreme Court, in respect with what was decided by the Judiciary”, assessed the Union’s attorney general, Jorge Messias. “And what he could preserve from the Federal Congress’s contribution to the demarcation, he preserved.”

The Minister of Original Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, said that her department initially recommended the full veto. “Later, we carried out a careful analysis and were able to look at the articles that are already guaranteed in the Federal Constitution and, therefore, could remain there”, she added.

The Federal Public Ministry, in turn, defended the full veto. In a statement published on Thursday 19th, the body’s Chamber of Indigenous Populations and Traditional Communities reinforced that the project is unconstitutional and that the legal regime of demarcations cannot be changed through ordinary law.

The Legislature could still override Lula’s veto. To do this, it will be necessary to convene a session of the National Congress and obtain an absolute majority of votes from deputies and senators to reject the president’s determination.

*With information from Carta Capital

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