The Civil House produced a technical note against the PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) that allows parliamentarians to assume command of embassies without losing their mandates.
Thus, the folder reiterates Itamaraty’s position. “Considering, mainly, the incompatibility in the exercise between the diplomatic function and the maintenance in harmony of the tripartite system of Powers, a position contrary to PEC No. the note, which serves as a basis for the government’s position on the subject.
In the Senate, the proposal is defended by the former president of the House, Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP). Today he commands the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission) and guided the analysis of the matter for this Wednesday (6).
The Civil House alleged that, among other points, the PEC violates “private powers of the President of the Republic”, the person responsible for appointing the heads of diplomatic missions. In the technical note, the Civil House also listed arguments presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against the matter. The chancellery said that the nature of the ambassadorship “recommends distancing from party politics” and that the position is different from that of a minister of state.
In the same vein, Itamaraty also pointed out that the PEC “vulnerabilities the constitutional regime of parliamentary immunities and violates the president’s private powers”.
“[A PEC] distorts the constitutional balance between the exclusive competence of the President of the Republic to enter into treaties that entail burdensome burdens or commitments to the national patrimony and the exclusive competence of the National Congress to definitively resolve them”, says the document.
The proposal’s rapporteur, Daniella Ribeiro (PSD-PB), argues that deputies and senators would be officials able to head permanent diplomatic missions because “they know, like few others, the real needs of Brazil and its people”. The senator also recalled that parliamentarians can occupy the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs, working at the highest level of their career and preparing Brazilian foreign policy. So the argument is that they could also occupy inferior positions.
In a public hearing on Tuesday (5), the project was criticized by former Chancellor Aloysio Nunes (PSDB). “A constitutional change of this nature creates permanent damage to Brazilian foreign policy and to an essential prerogative of the president, which is to speak with full authority on behalf of Brazil,” he said.
Nunes also stated that the PEC has problems in terms of merit and constitutionality and causes confusion by discouraging diplomats who enter the career with the ambition to reach the post of ambassador.
The audience also included the participation of diplomats, professors of international relations and researchers, including Mathias Alencastro, columnist for Sheet. Everyone spoke out against the PEC.
Alcolumbre did not preside over the hearing or participate in the debates — the session was led by Senator Mara Gabrilli (PSDB-SP). The director of the Rio Branco Institute, Gilvania Maria de Oliveira, represented Chancellor Carlos França, on a trip. For her, the scenario that the PEC wants to open was buried in the 1988 Constituent Assembly. “This topic was debated in 1987 and 1988, and we consider, with all due respect to the honorable Senator Davi Alcolumbre, that there are sensitive and problematic themes in elements of constitutionality. “
At the beginning of the government, President Bolsonaro tried to appoint his son Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP) to head the Brazilian embassy in the US. In 2019, the deputy said that he had, among his qualifications, the experience of an exchange program in the country during which he “fried hamburgers in the cold of the [estado do] Maine”.
Under the rules in force, Eduardo would have to resign to take up the post in Washington. The nomination, however, did not prosper due to the resistance of parliamentarians to the name of the president’s son and an open political crisis in the former PSL (now União Brasil), then a party of Bolsonaro and his children.
