PEC that expands Brazil Aid in election year is ‘outdoing the law’, says expert

The vote on the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) that creates and expands social benefits in an election year was rescheduled for 4 pm this Thursday (30) by Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco, after Housemates asked for more time for analysis. The governing base tried to approve the text on Wednesday night (30).

Dubbed behind the scenes of the Congress of PEC Kamikaze, for the impact of R$ 38.75 billion in addition to the government spending cap, the measure provides for the launch of a voucher worth R$ 1,000 for truck drivers and raises the values ​​of Auxílio Brasil from BRL 400 to BRL 600 and gas aid from BRL 60 to BRL 120 in the two-month period.

There is also compensation for the free transport of the elderly, with an estimated cost of R$ 2.5 billion, and transfers for the exemption of ethanol with a total value of R$ 3.8 billion.

Electoral legislation prohibits the creation of benefits in an election year, with the exception of cases of public calamity and state of emergency.

The text of the PEC, which is being analyzed three months before the presidential elections, institutes a “state of emergency” under the justification of the high increase in fuel prices.

To enter into force, the PEC needs to be approved in two rounds by both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and have three-fifths of the votes of parliamentarians in both houses. After approval, it is enacted automatically, without the need for presidential sanction.

Former Minister of the Federal Supreme Court Marco Aurélio Mello, who is on a trip to Turkey, declared that he “does not know the PEC”. To BBC News Brasil, he limited himself to saying that “kindness in a year of general elections is complicated. The scenario promises. With the word, the TSE [Tribunal Superior Eleitoral]”.

For Marilda Silveira, professor of electoral law at the IDP (Instituto Brasiliense de Direito Público), “the claim conveyed in the PEC, if implemented, has a conduct that is expressly prohibited in law 9,504, article 73, paragraph 10. There is an express prohibition of distribution of any type of benefit that does not have express authorization in the law and that has not been executed in the previous year”.

“This constitutional amendment was born with a deviation of purpose”, says Alberto Rollo, a specialist in electoral law.

“It’s a legal way of trying to bypass these fences. The intention is maliciously to outmaneuver the law”, he says. “It’s legal magic they’re trying to do and a dangerous precedent.”

Justification for state of emergency

The rapporteur of the matter, senator and former leader of the government Fernando Bezerra (MDB-PE) mentions the Ukrainian War and the impact on fuels to ask for the recognition of the state of emergency.

“It is essential to recognize that the country is going through an emergency situation caused by the sharp increase in fuel prices, with its direct impacts on the cost of living, and indirect, via second-round effects on inflation”, reads an excerpt from the opinion. .

“The PEC dangerously characterizes the state of emergency so that these benefits can be granted”, says Gabriel Quintanilha, guest professor at FGV Direito Rio.

For Alberto Rollo, “a state of emergency is an exceptional situation. An exceptional situation cannot be created artificially”.

Marilda Silveira analyzes that the intention of the PEC “is to try to constitutionalize an emergency. But emergency is a matter of fact, not a legal issue”.

“The president’s competence is to decree cases of calamity as was done in the pandemic. If they are doing it for the PEC it is because they know that there is weakness in the argument”, she says.

According to Quintanilha, “the justification is very fragile because there is no direct involvement of the country in the war. Therefore, there is a risk that even the Court of Auditors will be recognized as not being a reasonable basis.”

“If the federal government manages to pass this measure, it leaves a huge budget hole for the next government, which could be itself. In this way, Brazil goes back in time to before the fiscal responsibility law, a period in which a government left and left the budget hole for the next government.”

This text was originally published here.