STF will judge law used by Tarcísio to hand over land – 10/31/2023 – Power

The STF (Supreme Federal Court) placed on the November trial agenda an action that judges the constitutionality of a law used by the Tarcísio de Freitas (Republican) government to hand over vacant land to farmers based on a law that gives up to 90% discount.

The direct action of unconstitutionality, reported by Minister Cármen Lúcia, should be judged virtually by the Supreme Court plenary between the 10th and 20th, according to the movement that occurred in the process this Monday (30th).

The law came into force during the administration of Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB), but the administration of Tarcísio, elected with the support of agriculture, started to put it into practice and accelerated the processes.

The PT was the author of the action in the STF to block the law. According to the acronym’s advisors at Alesp (São Paulo Legislative Assembly), the estimate is that the discounts will reach R$150 million.

The party had also requested an injunction with the aim of trying to temporarily block the law, and members of the PT even met with the minister with this objective. However, after conversations with PT members and also with members of the government, the minister should let the case be decided by the plenary.

The action was proposed at the end of last year. Without a decision from the Supreme Court, Tarcísio handed over the first 37 titles of vacant land to farmers in September.

Vacant lands are irregularly occupied public areas that never had a destination defined by the public authorities and at no time had a private owner. The government then begins to discriminate against these lands, giving preference to those who currently occupy them.

Currently, there are more than a hundred projects to regularize vacant land on large and medium-sized properties.

A video revealed by Sheet shows the then director of Itesp (São Paulo Land Institute), Guilherme Piai, citing that it is necessary to act in the process “while the law is in force”. “Now there is a political issue happening, which is also outside the jurisdiction of Itesp, where this law has a great chance of falling,” he said in the recording.

At the time, Itesp stated that the director suggested in the video that, as long as the law allows, procedural instruction for the agreements be carried out and “ultimately, the resumption of legal security, peace and development”.

Since then, Piai gained more power in the government and was promoted to Secretary of Agriculture by Tarcísio.

In the piece requesting an injunction against the law made by the PT, signed by lawyer Marcio Calisto Cavalcante and others, the party says that the government outlined a strategy of encouraging people to speed up the processes.

PT members and social movements such as the MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement) maintain that the state is getting rid of land for negligible values ​​and that the areas should be used to carry out agrarian reform.

PSOL also entered the matter at the national level, asking the STF to participate in the PT’s action as amicus curiae, providing support to the process.

The Attorney General’s Office of the State of SP maintains that the regulation of the law made clear the fulfillment of the social function of rural property, as there is a report proving the “rational and adequate use of the property”.

The opinion of the then Attorney General of the Republic Augusto Aras, on the other hand, was positive to the PT’s request and says that the law and the decree that regulates it “seem to invade the Union’s competence” and violate precepts that involve compatibility with the reform agrarian.

The AGU states that the model in the law fails to advocate the need for this type of procedure to comply with rules of agrarian reform policy.

The government’s argument is that, by handing over the land to farmers, the state will stop spending on continuing litigation and compensation for improvements, in addition to using the amounts collected to invest in social policies.

The government says that, instead of losing money, it will save R$40 million with just eight of these properties evaluated.