Minister André Mendonça, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), interrupted this Wednesday (6) the trial of two actions of the so-called “environmental agenda” that questioned the omissions of the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL) in the fight against deforestation in the Amazon.
Mendonça is a former AGU (Attorney General of the Union) and Bolsonaro’s former Minister of Justice and was appointed by the president to the court last year.
Since last week, the court has judged 2 of the 7 actions of the so-called “environmental agenda”, seen as a reaction by the Supreme to what experts point out as a dismantling of public policies in the Jair Bolsonaro administration, especially those related to the Amazon.
After a long vote by the rapporteur of the cases, the minister Cármen Lúcia, who took almost two sessions of the STF, Mendonça, who would give the next vote, asked for a view (more time for analysis) and interrupted the judgment of the actions.
Carmen Lúcia had voted to order the federal government to present an “effective and satisfactory” execution plan within 60 days to reduce deforestation in the Amazon and protect the rights of indigenous people living in the region.
She said that the government has not implemented public inspection policies in the Amazon and that in the operations carried out there is “no record of records, there is no reference to areas that need to be embargoed and there are no assets seized, if any” — what she called “administrative deception”.
The trial began on the 30th and continued on the 31st, but Cármen Lúcia ended her vote only this Wednesday.
The minister stated that there is an “unconstitutional state of affairs” in the country’s environmental policy, an institute that would allow the Judiciary to stipulate and monitor measures to the other branches in relation to the issue.
The unconstitutional state of affairs was already recognized by the Supreme Court in a 2015 lawsuit that dealt with the condition of the Brazilian prison system. It is an institute that recognizes, according to the STF itself, “a situation of massive and generalized violation of fundamental rights that affects a large number of people”.
In her statements in plenary at the trial sessions, Cármen Lúcia repeatedly criticized the government’s conduct of environmental policy.
He even mentioned a speech by Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) that Brazil is a “small environmental transgressor” and that “from time to time there is a forest that burns here and there”.
“The transgression is confessed. In my view, there is not much to discuss on this topic,” said the STF minister.
He also said that Brazil has suffered a situation of “institutional termiteization”, which would be a kind of internal and invisible corrosion of institutions, especially those that deal with the environment.
“What are these termites? The termites of authoritarianism, the termites of populism, the termites of personal interests, the termites of administrative inefficiency. of the constitutional matter duly ensured”, said the minister.
The STF’s environmental agenda was resisted by the Attorney General’s Office. Attorney General Augusto Aras spoke out against all the cases – including one presented by the Attorney General’s Office itself. The minister said she was surprised by this demonstration.
One of the two lawsuits judged by the Supreme Court asks the federal government to carry out environmental inspection and control “at sufficient levels to effectively combat deforestation in the Legal Amazon and the consequent achievement of the Brazilian climate goals assumed before the global community”.
The authors also ask that the Union “put into effect the specific plan for institutional strengthening of Ibama, ICMBio and Funai and others to be eventually appointed by the Federal Executive Branch”. This was presented by PDT, PT, PV, PSB, PC do B, Rede and PSOL.
A lawsuit filed by the Network asking for Bolsonaro’s omission to be declared unconstitutional was simultaneously put on trial.
It also requests that the budget of environmental agencies be fully implemented and the hiring of personnel for environmental inspection in the Amazon, in addition to the presentation of a contingency plan to reduce deforestation to levels found in 2011 or lower.
