Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, of the Federal Supreme Court, determined that the passport for the vaccine is mandatory for all travelers traveling to Brazil from abroad. Only those dispensed for medical reasons and those who come from a country where there is proven no vaccine available or for exceptional humanitarian reasons will be exempt from presenting the vaccine passport.
In the decision, he understood that there is urgency for the topic due to the increase in travel in the coming period and the risk of Brazil becoming an anti-vaccine destination.
Barroso partially granted the injunction requested by the Rede Sustentabilidade party. In action, the Network asked the federal government to adopt measures recommended by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to enter the country in order to contain the spread of Covid-19.
The minister will ask that the decision be sent to a referendum in an extraordinary session of the Court’s Virtual Plenary.
“The daily entry of thousands of travelers into the country, the approach of the end of the year festivities, pre-carnival events and the carnival itself, capable of attracting large numbers of tourists, and the threat of promoting anti-vaccine tourism, given the imprecision of the rules that demand its proof, configure an unequivocal imminent risk, which authorizes the granting of the injunction”, writes Barroso in the decision.
When analyzing the case, the minister recalled that the Federal Supreme Court has a constitutional obligation to protect the fundamental rights to life and health. “There are already more than 600,000 lives lost and denial attitudes still persist,” added Barroso. He recalled the various decisions already taken by the STF during the pandemic, such as the one that stipulated mandatory vaccination with the possibility of imposing restrictions on those who refuse.
For the minister, the interministerial ordinance partially meets the recommendations of Anvisa in relation to travelers, but the text “presents ambiguities and inaccuracies that can give rise to divergent interpretations, to the detriment of the constitutional rights to life and health in question”.
He added that allowing the free option for quarantine “creates a situation of absolute lack of control and the consequent ineffectiveness of the norm”.
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