Pacheco proposes PEC that boosts judge and prosecutor salary – 03/24/2023 – Power

The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), obtained the necessary signatures to resubmit the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) that boosts the salaries of judges and members of the Public Ministry, dubbed the PEC of the Quinquennial.

The proposal provides for an additional 5% of salary every five years, up to a limit of 35%. In addition, the text states that the previous legal activity of the magistrate and member of the Public Prosecutor’s Office —in law, for example— can be used for the purpose of counting the time of exercise.

Pacheco tried to vote for the pendant in November, but the session was postponed at the request of the newly elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) team. With no deadline to resume discussion in plenary, PEC 63 was shelved in January, at the end of the legislature.

At the time of the vote, Senator Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), now leader of the government in the Senate, stated that the timing was not right and that Lula intended to talk “more broadly about this matter” when he was in the Presidency.

The government leader also explained that the vote on the PEC was a compromise between Pacheco and STF (Federal Supreme Court) minister Luiz Fux, who left the presidency of the court in September last year.

Presented in 2013, the Quinquennium PEC was practically forgotten in the Senate drawer, but it was again the target of articulation behind the scenes in 2022 and received explicit support from Pacheco, who is a lawyer.

The new proposal by the President of the Senate has the support of parliamentarians from PSD, PL, União Brasil, PDT, Republicans, PP, PSB and PSDB. In yet another sign of opposition from the Lula government, no PT senator had signed the PEC until this Friday (24).

Despite this, the alternates of ministers Flávio Dino (Justice and Public Security), Ana Paula Lobato (PSB-MA), and Carlos Fávaro (Agriculture), Margareth Buzetti (PSD-MT), signed the proposal, which received number 10 in the Senate system.

By resurrecting the issue, Pacheco claims that the discussion “involves a commitment to Brazilian justice”, and that “defending such valuation for length of service does not imply admitting super wages”.

The president of the Senate also says that the judiciary and the Public Prosecutor’s Office should be attractive to “operators of the law at the end of their careers”, and that it is necessary to correct distortions that make magistrates with less length of service earn the same as the more experienced.

To soften the impact, Pacheco has said that the PEC of the Five-Year Period will only be enacted and will come into force after the approval of a project against the super wages of public agents, which would regulate the payment of aid that circumvent the constitutional ceiling.

As shown to SheetFenajufe, the federation of Judiciary servants, is already mobilizing to block PEC 10. Fenajufe says that it is unfair to resurrect the five-year period in a scenario in which Judiciary servants have been without wage recomposition for five years.

The proposal presented by Pacheco also displeases other categories. Last year, the rapporteur for PEC 63, senator Eduardo Gomes (PL-TO), proposed that the benefit be extended to members of the Public Defenders and Courts of Accounts of the Union, states, DF and municipalities.

In June, after a meeting with the president of the Senate, Fux’s advisory said that he expressed “support for the approval of the PEC for the Five-Year Period”, but conditioned the benefit “to the extinction of aid paid by the courts, also called ‘trinkets'”.

“In the minister’s assessment, the proposal may restructure the career of the judiciary and prevent a newly sworn-in judge, for example, from receiving the same salary as a judge with more than 30 years of experience in the judiciary”, said the STF advisory in the last year.

The PEC presented by Pacheco does not bring estimates of financial impact. During the discussion of PEC 63, the leader of Podemos, senator Oriovisto Guimarães (PR), pointed out that the cost could reach R$ 7.5 billion per year just with the payment to magistrates and members of the Public Ministry.