Daniel Silveira had been sentenced on Wednesday by the STF, but Bolsonaro pardoned him the next day and on Thursday night the Official Gazette of the Union published the “institutional grace” benefiting his ally.
Jurists and opposition leaders questioned the pardon, warning that it causes a “serious institutional crisis” and can be understood as part of a coup by the Brazilian president.
In his weekly broadcast through social networks Bolsonaro said that with this measure he intends to defend Silveira’s “freedom of expression”far-right deputy and former police officer.
The application of institutional grace represents “news of extreme importance for our democracy and for our freedom,” assured the president.
It is a “measure that I began to work on last night (Wednesday) when the prison of 8 years and 9 months” against Silveira was announced, Bolsonaro said.
The “grace” nullifies the sentence voted by ten of the eleven judges that make up the STF.
In addition, the ruling contemplated the loss of Silveira’s mandate and prevented him from running as a candidate in the general elections in October.
The newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo affirms today that Bolsonaro told “members of his government that he is not going to back down on his strategy of confrontation with the Supreme Court.”
“President Jair Bolsonaro provokes a crisis with the Federal Supreme Court, in a controversial decision, said the Jornal Nacional newscast on TV Globo.
The “grace” signed by Bolsonaro “was the most serious attack on democracy committed by the president”declared the professor of Constitutional Law Lenio Streck.
“We are facing an institutional crisis, disobeying a decision of the Judiciary” can lead to Bolsonaro being accused of a “crime of responsibility,” said Pierpaolo Bottini, a law professor at the University of São Paulo.
The onslaught of Bolsonaro, who is a pre-candidate for re-election in October, was also questioned by other candidates for the presidency of Brazil.
“Used to act in the territory of the shadow, between the moral and immoral (Bolsonaro) tries to accelerate the pace towards the coup,” he said Cyrus Gomespresidential candidate for the Labor Democratic Party (PDT, center-left).
“Society can’t take any more impunity,” he said. Joao Doriapresidential candidate for the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB, center-right).
Source: Ambito
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