Novo denounces Dino for abuse of authority by imposing sanctions on Google

The Novo party presented, this Friday (5), a complaint to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) against the Minister of Justice and Security, Flávio Dino, and the National Consumer Secretary, Wadih Damous, for abuse of authority. The complaint is related to the precautionary measure against Google announced by the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacom), linked to the portfolio commanded by Dino, on Tuesday (2), the date on which the Fake News bill was scheduled to be voted in the Chamber of Deputies. The bill has solid support from the federal government, and the accused minister has also positioned himself in favor of the proposal several times.

During the day, Dino called a press conference to announce a series of measures against Google. The technology company had since the beginning of the day a notification on its website with a link to a text with the title “How PL 2630 can make your internet worse”, criticizing the bill. In addition to ordering the exclusion of the report, Lula’s minister demanded that the company publish a counter-advertisement with messages favorable to the Fake News PL under penalty of a fine of R$ 1 million per hour of non-compliance and suggested, without evidence, that the searches would be manipulating search results to benefit sites that speak against the Fake News PL.

Sanctions imposed by the government have abstract, confusing and unrelated reasoning, says party

In the complaint filed by Novo, the party claims that Dino and Damous would have committed three crimes provided for in the Law of Abuse of Authority:

• Art. 27. Request the initiation or initiate an investigative procedure for a criminal or administrative offense, to the detriment of someone, the absence of any indication of the commission of a crime, functional offense or administrative infraction.
• Art. 30. Initiate or proceed with criminal, civil or administrative prosecution without just cause or against who knows innocent.
• Art. 30. Initiate or proceed with criminal, civil or administrative prosecution without just cause or against who knows innocent.
  (emphasis added by the complainant)

The party maintains that the imposition of administrative sanctions must be accompanied by a clear, explicit statement of reasons directly related to the case. In other words, it understands that the government did not present the minimum legal justifications to prove the alleged irregularities to the point of justifying the precautionary measure.

“There is simply no legal support for the actions of Minister Flávio Dino and Mr. Wadih Damous, National Consumer Secretary. And that is precisely why they based this sanctioning and abusive decision on abstract, confusing and, above all, unformulated legal precepts to regulate the case of GOOGLE, a case of legitimate exercise of freedom of opinion”, says an excerpt from the complaint.

To justify the decision, the Senacom secretary mentioned Articles 4, 6, 20, 37 and 39, all of the Consumer Protection Code (CDC). None of them, according to the complaint, has to do with the concrete case involving Google’s position contrary to the bill in question.

“Art. 4 deals simply with consumer protection principles. Article 6, III, deals with adequate information on products and services, but in relation to specification, composition, quality, taxes and risks. Article 20 deals with product defects that make it unfit for consumption. Article 37 deals with misleading or abusive advertising and art. 39 takes care of abusive practices entirely dissociated from the specific case”, points out Novo.

Finally, the party also highlights in the complaint the government’s interest in seeing the Fake News PL approved, which would place the minister as partial to using state power to employ measures with the power to silence criticism of the proposal.