[ad_1]
The country’s courts must grant house arrest or provisional release to inmates who are in places above their capacity, who are at risk of contracting Covid-19 and who have not committed violent crimes or serious threats. Minister Luiz Edson Fachin, of the Supreme Federal Court, made the decision to grant collective Habeas Corpus this Thursday (12/17).
Carlos Humberto / SCO / STF
The precautionary measure must be endorsed in the Plenary of the 2nd Panel of the court. The rapporteur requested to be included in the agenda of the virtual session that will begin on February 5.
In the decision, the minister considers that the epidemic situation has worsened, so that there is “danger of irreparable injury or difficult repair of the fundamental rights of imprisoned people.”
Fachin determines the granting of early progression of the sentence to convicts who are in a semi-open regime to the open regime under house arrest. The judge can grant ex officio or upon request.
For the concession, these prisoners must cumulatively meet the following requirements: be in prisons with occupation above physical capacity; demonstrate that they belong to a risk group for Covid-19; serving sentences for crimes committed without violence or without serious threat to the person.
It is also admitted that the court of origin, in compliance with the precautionary measure and in the analysis of individual cases, does not grant alternative measures to imprisonment, in the following cumulative cases:
– absence of Covid-19 cases in the respective prison;
– adoption of preventive measures against coronavirus by the prison;
– existence of adequate medical care in prison.
Judges can still refrain from granting alternative sentences when it comes to “extremely exceptional situations that eliminate the risk to the detainee’s health in a concrete and objective manner and when the detainee’s release poses an excessive risk to public safety.”
Unconstitutional state of affairs
The concession of HC is at the request of the Public Defender’s Office of the Union, which maintained that the courts throughout the country are reluctant to apply CNJ Resolution 62, which deals with preventive measures for the spread of coronavirus infection in prisons . Defender Gustavo de Almeida Ribeiro acted in the case.
When analyzing the request, Fachin takes into account the Brazilian prison scenario and affirms that the danger to the prisoner’s health is even greater when the person is included in the risk group for Covid-19, since there is a “failure scenario systemic and prison overcrowding “.
The incidence of infected cases among prisoners and prison staff is “significantly higher than in the general population,” the minister said. For him, the difficulties to avoid contamination by the virus range from the personal hygiene of the detainees to the physical detachment itself, something that the court already recognized when declaring the “state of affairs” of the prison system unconstitutional.
Fachin also considered the danger of the delay in granting the HC, noting that a possible omission on the part of the country could generate responsibility and international punishment.
Click here to read the initial
Click here to read the preliminary injunction
HC 188,820
[ad_2]
