Ex-membros do governo FHC enviam carta pedindo a Barroso respeito às leis
Open Letter by Intellectuals and Former Cabinet Ministers to Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court Minister Roberto Barroso
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BRASILIA - Members of the ex-president Cardoso cabinet wrote to a judge of the Superior Electoral Court, Luís Roberto Barroso, asking him to allow Lula to run for president. The Letter was signed, among others, by two former Ministers, Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, and the former Ambassador to London, Celso Amorim. Cardoso now openly advocates for Lula imprisonment in the hope that this move could bring his party back to power through the ballot box. Cardoso party is in government now because it managed to manoeuvre to impeach Dilma Rousseff after Cardoso ally lost the presidential dispute in 2014.
The signatories asked Barroso to uphold to his history of appraisal of Human Rights International Law in the light of the UN decision that stated that the Brazilian State should grant Lula his political rights. Unfortunately, this court has rejected this right. Only Edson Fachin, another judge of this same court, decided to follow the international and national law, granting Lula his political rights. Fachin mentioned the Viena Convention: "We must admit we are denying the validity of the Viena Convention", he said. Lula leads all the pools for the presidency. Many fear that Brazil is moving away from the democratization process and returning to the authoritarian rule.
Read the letter below
Open Letter by Intellectuals and Former Cabinet Ministers to Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court Minister Roberto Barroso
Former cabinet Ministers from the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Lula's ex-Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim, Professors Maria Vitoria de Mesquita Benevides, Fabio Konder Comparato, Luiz Felipe Alencastro and Dalmo Abreu Dallari, and the noted engineer Pedro Celestino Pereira, sent a letter to Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) Minister Luís Roberto Barroso about the legal procedure underway evaluating Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's electoral rights.
The letter states, “We trust that your excellency, who has shown a strong commitment with justice and democracy, will take these values into consideration in analyzing issues involving the candidacy of ex-President Lula”.
The following is the entire text of the letter:
São Paulo, August 30, 2018
To His Excellency, Supreme Electoral Court Minister Luís Roberto Barroso
Dear Minister,
We, Brazilian citizens who have always participated in public life, have a common interest in democracy, the guarantee of human rights, the legitimacy of the State, and Brazil's international credibility.
Your Excellency has vigorously professed humanistic values in the past. In your book, A Dignidade da Pessoa Humana no Direito Constitucional Contemporâneo (The Dignity of the Human Person in Constitutional Law), you state that, “the globalization of law is an essential characteristic of the modern world which promotes, in its current stage, a confluence between constitutional law, international law and human rights. The national and international institutions aim to establish a framework for a contemporary utopia: a world of democracies, fair trade and the promotion of human rights.”
In this context, Your Excellency has spoken out on some occasions about the importance of the Brazilian state in complying with decisions issued by international institutions arising from international human rights treaties welcomed by Brazil.
In the judgment of a Point of Order, in which you discussed the legality of the free candidatures in the Brazilian political system, Your Excellency reiterated the supra-legal nature of the San José, Costa Rica Covenant. In the same sense, when you were participating in a Federal Senate hearing, Your Excellency said that the current jurisprudence strategy in the Federal Supreme Court is that international treaties have a supra-legal nature; they are above the law.
On August 17th, 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee, a treaty body of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, accepted the request for an injunction proposed by ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva through the intermediation of his lawyers. In the document of the High Commissioner of Human Rights which communicated the decision, it is emphasized that the Committee requests that the Brazilian State “take all necessary measures” to guarantee that the ex-President can exercise his political rights in the position of candidate – which included access to the press and members of his political party -”until his appeals processes in the court system are judged in a definitive manner in fair legal proceedings.”
We trust that Your Excellency, who has demonstrated a strong commitment with democracy and justice, will take these values into consideration while analyzing issues involving the candidacy of ex-President Lula.
Signed with assurances of the highest esteem and respect,
Sincerely,
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, ex-Minister of the Treasury, The Federal Administration and The Science and Technology Ministry
Celso Amorim, ex-Minister of Foreign Relations and Defense
Luiz Felipe Alencastro, Professor at the University of the Sorbonne and Fundação Getúlio Vargas
Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, President of the UN Investigatory Commission on Syria and ex-Minister of the Human Rights Secretariat
Maria Vitoria de Mesquita Benevides, Professor at Universidade de São Paulo
Dalmo Abreu Dallari Professor at Universidade de São Paulo
Fábio Konder Comparato Professor at Universidade de São Paulo
Pedro Celestino Pereira, Engineer