STF concludes trial and overturns pardon for Daniel Silveira – 05/10/2023 – Power

The STF (Federal Supreme Court) overturned this Wednesday (10), by 8 votes to 2, the pardon granted by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to former federal deputy Daniel Silveira (PTB-RJ).

Last Thursday (4), the Supreme had already formed a majority for the benefit to the former parliamentarian to be overturned, but the votes of ministers Luiz Fux and Gilmar Mendes were still missing. Both followed the majority.

In a note released last week, Silveira’s defense classified the trial as “bread and circuses”.

Silveira had been sentenced last year by the STF to 8 years and 9 months in prison, in an initial closed regime, for promoting attacks on court ministers and encouraging anti-democratic acts.

The conviction also provided for payment of a fine and loss of political rights, but he was benefited by a decree issued by the former president extinguishing the sentence.

The president of the court, Rosa Weber, voted on Wednesday (3) for the unconstitutionality of Bolsonaro’s decree that authorized the pardon. She is the rapporteur for four lawsuits filed by Rede, PDT, Cidadania and PSOL against the benefit.

Rosa stated that the former president edited an individual decree “absolutely disconnected from the public interest” and that its objective “was to benefit a political ally of the first hour legitimately convicted criminally by the STF”.

“The head of the federal executive branch, in so doing, despite apparently having competence to do so, subverted the rule and violated constitutional principles, producing an act with inadmissible effects for the legal order”, he said.

The following day, ministers Alexandre de Moraes, Edson Fachin, Luís Roberto Barroso, Dias Toffoli and Cármen Lúcia followed suit.

The two ministers appointed to the Supreme Court by Bolsonaro, Kassio Nunes Marques and André Mendonça, disagreed with Rosa and defended maintaining the pardon for Silveira.

Barroso, who gave one of the most emphatic votes in the trial, said that the conviction had not violated the limits of protection of freedom of expression.

“You can only think that there was a violation of freedom of expression if you didn’t bother to listen or read the demonstrations. If you are a normal person, you will have been completely horrified by what you judged. It is so faithless in the human condition. appalling statements,” he said.

He added that the argument does not fit when there is a threat of physical aggression to Supreme Court ministers, incitement to invade Congress and the STF and the creation of animosity between the Armed Forces and the institutions in the declarations.

“People who talk, in my view, about God, homeland and family cannot condone this and should, if they have any doubts, gather the family in the living room, evoke God’s protection and show the video. And, if they think that it’s okay to tell the family that this is the country we have, it’s anti-democratic. It’s foul language, rude, that looked more like an open sewer”, he said.

The minister recalled that pardons are granted for humanitarian reasons or within the policy of extricating less serious crimes to relieve the penitentiary system. He also stated that Bolsonaro granted the benefit even before the publication of the STF decision and the end of the appeal stages.

Mendonça, on the other hand, argued that it was not a question of recognizing or defending the existence of an act performed by a state agent, but that the control exercised by the Justice is not the only one in the system of checks and balances provided for by the Federal Constitution.

He stated that the court has already recognized, in previous decisions, the impossibility of stipulating limitations on presidential clemency by jurisprudential activity or by means of ordinary legislation.

Mendonça also stated that, after the trial, “voices emerged in society saying that the sentence would have been excessive” and that it cannot be excluded that Silveira is someone close to him politically, but that he himself voted for his conviction.

“In my judgment, before a political institute, authorized by the Constitution, I understand that, even in the context of that moment, that the granting of grace [como é chamado o indulto individual] pacification also had an effect, albeit circumstantial and momentary,” he said.

When Mendonça cited opinions published in the press that would indicate that the penalty might have been excessive, he and Moraes had a slight argument. The latter interrupted Mendonça and asked if the cited authors were jurists, which he denied. “Just so that it appears in the annals”, justified Moraes.

Mendonça continued reading the articles and added “unless they were fake news”, and Moraes interrupted him again and said: “taking into account who is being judged, it is possible”.

The trial began on the 27th, when the ministers of the STF heard the arguments of the parties, interested third parties and also the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras.

The sanction against Silveira will only be fulfilled after the judgment of all appeals that may be filed by Silveira’s defense.