By 291 votes to 148, the Chamber approved on January 8 a project to reduce the sentences of convicted persons | Policy

The announcement of the inclusion of the project on the agenda was made on Tuesday (9) by the President of the Chamber, MP Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), after a meeting with party leaders, who say they were taken by surprise. Motta told reporters that “the time has come” to address the issue. “Nothing more natural than arriving at the end of the year with the final position of the Chamber,” he said.

The session supposed to analyze the project was preceded by a great uproar in plenary. With the impeachment procedure on Wednesday’s agenda, MP Glauber Braga (Psol-RJ) announced that he would occupy the presidential chair and ended up being forcibly expelled from the plenary by agents of the legislative police.

After the confusion, Motta resumed the session as if nothing had happened, but did not immediately convene the discussion on PL dosimetry. Before that, the stubborn debtor’s project had been voted on, which meant that the analysis of the text took place until the early hours.

The grassroots deputies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including the head of government in the House, deputy José Guimarães (PT-CE), protested against the vote and declared that the subject could not be discussed “in the dead of night”.

The rapporteur of the dosimetry PL, MP Paulinho da Força (SD-SP), defended his text and declared that it was a “National Pacification PL”.

Paulinho da Força stressed that the dosimetry project “is not a gesture of forgetting, it is a gesture of reconciliation”, affirming that the proposal constitutes a turning point for the “resumption of institutional normality in the country”. As he began reading the report, he publicly thanked Michel Temer, Rodrigo Maia, Antonio Rueda, Ciro Nogueira, Gilberto Kassab, Marcos Pereira and Baleia Rossi for their contributions to the negotiation process.

Previously, the rapporteur said the Senate should maintain the agreement for a quick vote in the House. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP) said he was in talks with Motta on the matter and that the House would vote on the project later this year. “I made a commitment to the leadership, to myself, to the Senate and to Brazil that if the House deliberated, the Senate would deliberate,” Alcolumbre said.

One of the reasons why the project was not on the agenda was uncertainty over how it would be handled by the Senate. Motta did not want to see a repeat of the episode of the vote on the protective PEC, approved by the House and canceled by the senators.

According to Paulinho da Força, there has been no sign of resistance from the Federal Supreme Court. “If there had been a reaction, they would have already called me: ‘Paulo, this is not possible’. Since they did not call me, I am calm. If someone goes to the Supreme Court with this question, I think they will lose,” he said. The PT House leader, Rep. Lindbergh Farias (RJ), has already announced that he may take the matter to court.

During the debate on the vote, Hugo Motta criticized the Workers’ Party after being provoked by the party’s leader in the House – with whom he broke away. Lindbergh recalled Hugo Motta’s inauguration speech, which mentioned the film “I’m Still Here,” about MP Marcelo Rubens Paiva and the military dictatorship. He criticized the decision to vote on the January 8 sentence reduction project and mentioned Ulysses Guimarães.

After his speech, Hugo Motta responded: “Hearing here, repeatedly and repeatedly, members of the Workers’ Party, a party that I respect, I respect its history, invoking and talking about Ulysses Guimarães, when this party itself voted against the current Constitution, is truly a historical inconsistency.”

What does the approved text say

The opinion of Paulinho da Força establishes that crimes against the democratic rule of law committed in the same context are punished by formal competition (avoiding the sum of the penalties), in addition to providing a reduction of one third to two thirds for those who participate in these crimes in a crowd context, provided that they do not exercise leadership or finance the acts.

The text also allows prisoners placed at home to continue to benefit from assistance through work or studies. The text also strengthens the regime’s progression rules for violent and heinous crimes, femicide, militias and criminal organizations, increasing from 20% to 70% the minimum percentage of the sentence that the convicted person must serve before moving to a softer regime – with the ban on conditional release in certain cases.

In the opinion, the rapporteur of the text specifies that the objective of the proposal is “to correct excesses without renouncing the responsibility of those who have exceeded the limits of the law”.

Throughout the day, government allies criticized Motta’s decision to vote on the project. For the leader of the PT in the House, MP Lindbergh Farias (RJ), the decision is linked to the announcement of the candidacy of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) for the Presidency of the Republic.

At the other ideological pole, the leader of the PL in the House, deputy Sóstenes Cavalcante (RJ), declared that the opposition had not given up on amnesty, but admitted to having reached an agreement in favor of the reduction of sentences as a “first step”. “We understand the parliamentary calendar and have decided to intensify our struggle, and the step today is the agreement reached between our seats and President Hugo Motta to vote for the reduction of sentences,” he said.

According to him, the decision received the approval of Bolsonaro, imprisoned at the headquarters of the Superintendence of the Federal Police (PF), in Brasilia. “We are not satisfied, but it is a possible step. We will not give up trying for amnesty next year,” Sóstenes said.

He confirmed that he had committed to Motta not to present any significant facts during the vote on dosimetry. One of the PL’s projects was to highlight the content of the original text, which provides for amnesty for the putschists.