STM has higher judge costs and fewer actions between courts – 04/13/2024 – Power

The STM (Superior Military Court), the highest body of Military Justice, judges less than 1,000 cases per year and has the highest monthly cost per minister, with salaries and benefits approaching R$78,000.

The court’s results are presented by critics of the Military Justice as an argument to defend the abolition of the court — a discussion that has been going on for more than two decades and was resumed after the attacks on the headquarters of the three Powers, on January 8, 2023.

On the other hand, members and supporters of the STM always reinforce the statement that only a specialized body has the capacity to analyze in court cases related to the values ​​of the barracks and military institutions with the speed necessary to avoid damage to the Armed Forces.

They also demand greater influence on the CNJ (National Council of Justice), which does not have a member of the Military Justice on its staff.

The court finalized 842 cases in 2023. The other higher courts, in comparison, had greater productivity, such as the Superior Court of Justice (412,570 cases downloaded), the Superior Labor Court (353,877) and the Superior Electoral Court (11,843).

The data collected by the CNJ and published in the latest bulletin “Justice in Numbers” gives the size of each of the higher courts. While at the STM each minister judged, on average, 51 cases in 2023, each STJ judge analyzed more than 12 thousand cases in the same year.

The differences remain large when analyzing the number of cases completed in the courts and the number of employees in the judicial area. The proportion in the STM is 3 processes per server, a lower number than that found in the STJ (231), TST (229) and TSE (27).

The STM is still the highest court that spends the most on salary and benefits per minister. The monthly expense for each of the 15 judges of the military court is R$77,964.

The value is lower in the TST (27 ministers, R$77,434), in the STJ (33 ministers, R$55,424) and in the TSE (14 ministers, R$17,116).

“It’s a very heavy institution in terms of organization and functioning. And it’s a sinecure, because the court ends up judging, in most cases, the use of narcotics in a military environment — basically marijuana”, highlights Maria Celina D’Araujo, visiting researcher from PUC-Rio, which is dedicated to the study of the military area.

“Military Justice has a very large structure to judge very few cases. To carry out military justice there is no need for a permanent, specialized court, especially in times of peace. Cases in Brazil can be perfectly judged in courts of common justice”, complete.

Last year, the three crimes most judged by the Superior Military Court were embezzlement (134 cases), possession or use of drugs (112) and desertion (92).

The majority of cases that reached the STM (447) were appeals from lower courts. In December, for example, the collegiate decided to maintain the conviction of 21 military and civilian personnel involved in a fraud scheme in food tenders in Manaus.

Criminalist Fernando Augusto Fernandes, creator of a website about political trials in the STM during the military dictatorship, argues that Military Justice should be abolished in times of peace, as it is “a meaningless structure in democracy”.

“Military matters can be resolved internally and, if judicialized, the jurisdictional provision can be carried out by the common courts, even if they have specialized courts.”

In other cases, the ministers of the Superior Military Court are criticized for acting corporatistically by reducing sentences for officers or soldiers involved in civilian deaths.

This is the scenario surrounding the trial of the Evaldo Rosa case, a musician murdered by Army soldiers during an action that involved the firing of 257 shots in 2019.

In the first part of the trial, minister Carlos Augusto Amaral Oliveira presented a report in favor of reducing the sentence of up to 28 years for the eight soldiers involved in the death of the musician and also the collector Luciano Macedo.

He was accompanied by the reviewing minister José Coêlho Ferreira, and the trial was interrupted by the request for a review (more time for analysis) from minister Maria Elizabeth. There is no expected date for the trial to return.

The STM is made up of 15 ministers, ten of whom are military and five are civilians. Positions are filled upon nomination by the President of the Republic and approval by the Senate.

Minister Maria Elizabeth, the only woman in the STM plenary, states that the court judges few cases compared to other higher courts because it only analyzes criminal cases. Furthermore, there are regulations within the Armed Forces that already stipulate punishments for military personnel, which reduces the volume.

She understands that there is no corporatism in the Military Justice. “It is a Justice that punishes a lot, does not allow agreements on non-criminal prosecution, it does not have any of the benefits granted to defendants in ordinary Justice”, the minister told Sheet.

Elizabeth states that the STM looks into many cases of drug use by military personnel and that, as a rule, the Military Court “is very harsh” in these cases. When it comes to crimes committed by military personnel against civilians, such as murders during military operations, the situation is already different.

“I understand the criticism [ao STM] and I even think that intentional crimes against life should be judged by a jury trial — but we have never even established a jury”, he adds.

The minister says that Military Justice “was created by the Constitution and respects all due legal process”. “Civil society is still very marked by the 1964 dictatorship. As long as the wounds are open, the Military Justice will have to bear this burden, which is a great injustice”, says the minister.

Former presidents of the STM have also spoken out, in previous debates, against proposals for its extinction. General Edson Alves Mey said, in 1999, that the low number of cases judged in court could be a result of the efficiency of the court itself.

“It is not because there are few patients that one should suspect that a hospital is deficient; it is quite possible that the opposite happens: because it is efficient, there are few users,” he said.

In 2013, the then president of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) Joaquim Barbosa openly defended the extinction of Military Justice. In response, the then president of the STM, General Raymundo Nonato de Cerqueira, said that the prerogative belongs to Congress and that, not even in 1988, “in a climate of revanchism, this was discussed”.

Two years later, another president of the STM, José Coêlho Ferreira, reinforced that only the Military Justice could act “with the necessary speed to avoid irreparable damage to hierarchy and discipline”.