Dilma Vana Rousseff , president of the Federative Republic of Brazil since January 2011 (re-elected in the 2014 elections), was removed from office on August 31, 2016 through an impeachment. process.
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Acceptance of the impeachment request against Dilma Rousseff
Over the course of 2015, fifty requests for impeachment were filed with the Chamber of Deputies against Dilma Rousseff. Most of these requests were shelved for lack of evidentiary material and arguments. However, one of them was welcomed by the then president of the Chamber, deputy Eduardo Wedge , on September 2, 2016. This request was prepared and filed in October of the same year by the jurists Janaína Conceição Paschoal , Miguel Reale Jr. and Hélio Bicudo . The request was also signed by three leaders of social movements who helped to articulate the great street demonstrations of 2015:Kim Patroca Kataguiri (Free Brazil Movement ), Rogério Checker (Come to the Street ) and Carla Zambelli Salgado (Anti-Corruption Movement ).
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Admissibility in the Chamber of Deputies and opening of the case
After receiving the request, this followed for consideration in the Chamber of Deputies, which was responsible for deciding whether the request would be continued (admissibility) or not. On April 17, 2016, a vote was taken in the Chamber's plenary, which decided to proceed. 367 deputies voted for admissibility, and the request was forwarded to the Senate Federal . On May 12, there was a plenary session of senators to decide on the opening of the process of impeachment. 55 of 81 senators voted for the opening. Dilma Rousseff, from then on, had to step down as president until the process was completed. Vice President Michel Fear took over on an interim basis.
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Complaint:Crime of Liability
The crime charged against the President of the Republic is provided for inArticle 85 of the Constitution Federal . This is the crime of responsibility . Another law that frames this type of crime and that was worked on by the complainants of the request is the Law 1.079, 1950. According to the complaint, Dilma would have ordered the issue of supplementary credits without the authorization of the Senate, as well as carrying out a credit operation with a financial institution controlled by the Union. As the complainants point out in the text of the request:
The whistleblowers would obviously prefer the President of the Republic to be able to carry out her term in office. However, the situation turns out to be so drastic and the behavior of the Head of the nation turns out to be so inadmissible, that there is no alternative but to ask this Chamber of Deputies to authorize her to be prosecuted for the crimes of responsibility provided for in article 85, items V, VI, and VII, of the Federal Constitution; in articles 4, items V and VI; 9th, numbers 3 and 7; 10 numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9; 11, number 3, of Law 1079/1950. [1]
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Dilma's Defense
Dilma's defense, during the process, was made by the lawyer José Eduardo Cardozo. The points presented were also justified by a group of senators from the president's allied base and belonging to the parties:PT , PCdoB and PMDB and NETWORK . The defense sought to argue that there was no crime in the credit operations edited by the president and that such operations were merely “authorizations of expenditures with no impact on the realization of expenditure”.
In addition, the defense also sought to sustain the narrative that the entire process, from the reception in the Chamber to the final moments, was a “white coup”, or parliamentary coup (when violence is not used) against President Dilma, articulated between political actors, such as the Vice President of the Republic and the then President of the Chamber, Eduardo Cunha.
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Position of the process report
The rapporteur of the case, Senator Antonio Anastasia, corroborated the arguments of the complaint and repudiated the defense's suggestion that the entire pleading was a “coup”. In Anastasia's words:
The opening of supplementary credits by decree is an exception to the general rule of fixing budget allocations by law. In this sense, the Constitution expressly prohibits the opening of supplementary credit without prior legislative authorization and without indicating the corresponding resources (art. 167, V). The edition of the decrees, object of this process, as demonstrated, blatantly violated this constitutional provision, revealing irresponsible conduct by the accused in relation to the duties of diligence assigned to her with a view to safeguarding the balance of public accounts. [2]
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Final Judgment and Sentence Slicing
After completing the procedures of the Special Commission on Impeachment, which set the stage for the discussion of the request, the process then proceeded to its final phase, which began on August 29, when President Dilma went to the Senate to make her defense and be questioned by the senators. After that, the defense and prosecution lawyers gave their closing speeches. Afterwards, two senators in favor of Dilma and two against it also made their final remarks. On August 31, the text of the sentence that should or should not be approved by the senators was put to a vote.
However, before voting began, the first secretary of the Senate, senator Vicentinho Alves , read an application prepared by the Workers' Party that requested “slicing”, that is, the highlighting of the sentence text. The sentence, according to the Constitution, provided that Dilma should lose theterm of president and be disabled from exercising public functions for eight years . The application called for a separate vote for each of these topics.
The application was accepted by the president of the section, who was also the president of the Federal Supreme Court, Ricardo Lewandowski . In this sense, the vote on the loss of the mandate was unfavorable to Dilma, since 61 senators voted in favor of the loss. The second vote favored her:42 senators chose not to leave Dilma disqualified from exercising public functions, against 36 who opposed.
* Image credits:Agência Senado Federal
NOTES
[1] BICUDO, PASCHOAL, REALE. Request for Impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff . pp. 60-61.
[2] ANASTASIA, Antônio. Opinion on the Special Commission on Impeachment. P. 262.
By me. Claudio Fernandes