The rapporteur of the draft amendment to the Public Security Constitution (PEC) in the Chamber, federal deputy Mendonça Filho (União-PE), excluded from the text extracts dealing with the Brazilian intelligence system. The request was made by the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski, according to the parliamentarian.
The PEC report was presented by Mendonça Filho on Wednesday 10 and is expected to be voted on next week by the Commission for Public Security and Combating Organized Crime.
The opinion makes drastic changes from the original text and is a sort of mash-up of the anti-faction bill currently under consideration in the Senate. And it provides a loophole to lower the age of criminal responsibility, harsher sanctions against factionalists and protect the states against the influence of the Union to direct public policies – contrary to what Lewandowski proposed.
Lewandowski’s request is due to the lack of consensus within the federal government itself on the issue, according to the MP. The initial CEP did not address this issue.
“The devices were included following public hearings with operators in the security field and, above all, in response to the request of the management of Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency), which defended a standardization of the intelligence system, with external control and oversight from Congress. Lewandowski does not consider it appropriate to include in this discussion on security the general standards on the national intelligence system,” Mendonça Filho said in a note.
The parliamentarian says the removed arrangements were aimed at “strengthening the joint work of financial intelligence agencies to identify faction leaders, violent criminals and public officials linked to crime; and ensuring the secure sharing of data between authorities to fight crime.”
The report mentions intelligence activities at certain points. One of them, relating to Article 122 of the Federal Constitution (on the exclusive powers of the Union), removed from the initial draft the provision providing for the creation of the Federal Highway Police and the exclusive responsibility of the Union in matters of public security and social defense, leaving the federal government with sole power to legislate on intelligence activities.
In another section, it placed the oversight and control of intelligence activities as the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Congress, thus giving power to the legislative branch over the executive. And he said that it was the exclusive responsibility of the President of the Republic to establish the national intelligence policy.
The report includes an entire section on the Brazilian intelligence system.
It is also expected that federal judges will be able to process and judge “requests for authorization from the central intelligence body of the Union for the use of confidential techniques and means, in the cases provided for by law” and that appointment to public security and intelligence positions will go through certain procedures such as social research and psychological examinations.
Mendonça Filho reversed several changes made by the Lula government and launched into an area that the initial project did not address. The MP proposes, for example, that a referendum be organized during the municipal elections of 2028 so that the population decides to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years – currently it is 18 years. The change would apply to cases of crimes committed “with violence or serious threat to the person.”
The PEC takes up the spirit of the anti-faction bill, the original version of which was also prepared by the ministry, by creating a new criminal category of “very dangerous criminal organization”, including factions and militias, which would be subject to a more rigorous penal regime.
Unlike the PEC, which deals with more structural issues to ensure the constitutional security of entities and societies, the bill deals with changes in criminal legislation to improve the fight against crime in a practical way.
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