[ad_1]
It is not only today that law firms have become the preferred target of the enemies of the right of defense. The recent escalation of attacks on defenders culminated in the largest offensive ever recorded in Brazil, the determination of compliance with 50 search and seizure orders at the offices and homes of lawyers and companies this Wednesday (9/9), by the federal judge. Marcelo Bretas.
The complaint was filed based on the complaint by Orlando Diniz, former president of Fecomércio. Caught by the Federal Public Ministry, Diniz only managed to close a plea deal after promising to indict large law firms, according to the magazine. Hour. In return, you get the freedom and the right to keep about $ 1 million deposited abroad.
In other words, it is an attack more sustained by the word of a whistleblower (the shot has already backfired in the case of Antonio Palocci, for example, more than once). But the news has already made the headlines of the country’s main news portals, which amounts to a kind of pre-condemnation by public opinion, a practice known as oppressive advertising.
By note, one of the targets of the orders, the attorney Christian zanin, explained that the services provided by the office to Fecomércio were widely verified in a report witnessed by an external audit. Bretas’ decision therefore constitutes an attack on promotion and an attempt at retaliation against Zanin’s work by exposing abuses committed by the “car wash,” he said.
The criminalist Alberto Zacharias Toron He drew attention to the fact that the receipt of the complaint and the authorization of the searches were determined almost simultaneously. “The concomitance of filing the complaint and conducting the search and seizure is deeply strange. Either this diligence is explicit because there were already elements to accuse in court, or the complaint did not have a sufficient empirical basis. There is something unusual in the procedure adopted, and not only for the originality ”, he explains.
Lawyer Streck loosening stresses that this is not an isolated attack and calls for institutional responses. “The authoritarian escalation in Brazil is like a hydra. One of the heads is the criminalization of the practice of law. Like the miller from Sans Souci, the lawyer (read OAB) has to tell the king that ‘there must still be judges in Brazil to stop this attack on the legal profession.’
The Institute of Criminal Guarantees (IGP), in a note signed by the president Ticiano Figueiredo, “warns of the risks that a misguided persecution operation, apparently aimed at criminalizing the law, can bring democracy, citizenship and the whole of society.”
“The legal profession is a fundamental part of the justice system and it is not possible to classify as a crime the exercise of the defense of jurisdiction, an essential activity for the proper functioning of the Judiciary. It is sad and disconcerting to see this type of persecutory operations in our country. The IGP trusts the instances of the Judicial Power to prevent any type of harassment to the class of lawyers. The weakening of the right of defense calls into question fundamental values for democracy and society. “
The National Prerogatives Commission of the OAB also sees another clear initiative to criminalize Brazilian law. “The National Commission for the Defense of Prerogatives and the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal Council of the Brazilian Bar Association will work to provoke all violations of the rights and prerogatives of the law and will initiate all administrative and judicial measures, of a civil and criminal, against which they launch and insist on criminalizing Brazilian law “, states a note signed by the counselors Alexandre ogusuku me Alex Souza de Moraes Sarkis.
“The prerogatives of defense and criminal prosecution are harmonious and absolutely reconcilable legal elements,” the commission’s note continues. “The process of criminalization of the law, which does not respect the prerogatives, is dictatorial and threatens the rule of law and democracy. There is no democratic state without free defense. de Prerogatives will fulfill the historic role of the uncompromising defense of Brazilian lawyers and lawyers. “
Defense attack
The boats against offices and lawyers have been piling up. In November 2019, for example, the day the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation decided the custodial sentence after a second instance sentence, the Federal Police announced that it had invested against the office of César Asfor Rocha, former minister of the Superior Court of Justice and again target of the Public Ministry of the Federation in the case of Fecomércio.
Shortly after the announcement, when the news had already been spread by various media outlets, the PF deleted the message and released another, which did not include Rocha’s office as a target.
A month earlier, in October 2019, a search procedure at the headquarters of Fetranspor (Federation of Passenger Transport Companies of the State of Rio de Janeiro) seized the contracts signed between lawyers and the federation. In total, the contracts of some 50 kiosks were seized, among those of some of the largest offices in the country, according to the newspaper’s columnist Lauro Jardim. Or Balloon.
Other episodes of similar characteristics, all around false information, had been previously recorded. This was also the case of the fraudulent investigation of the Federal Treasury against Gilmar Mendes and the episode attributed to Marcelo Odebrecht to attack Dias Toffoli, before the trial for the criminalization of homophobia.
Also noteworthy is the fact that some of the targets were repeated: Cristiano Zanin had all his office conversations recorded in 2016, as revealed spells at the time. César Asfor Rocha was the target of fake news from the PF in 2019, and now he appears again as a target of searches, despite never having received payments from Fecomércio do Rio.
The frequency and extent of attacks has only increased. According to the lawyers heard by the spells, is an orchestrated attempt to weaken the right to defense, as a result of the criminalization of politics, big business and public administrators.
The lawyers cited some measures that have been underway for some time, aimed at making it difficult to access the defense and, consequently, mitigating the presumption of innocence. Among them, the restrictions on Habeas Corpus; decrease in resources; office searches and seizures; and violation of the bank secrecy of offices. There is also the use of evidence obtained by illicit means and invoices that want to force lawyers to prove the lawful origin of the fees received.
As a collateral effect, criminalization supports the advance of state authoritarianism, as already noted. Streck loosening.
[ad_2]
