(Oct. 25, 2019) On September 28, 2019, the Association of Brazilian Magistrates (Associação de Magistrados Brasileiros, AMB) filed a lawsuit with the Federal Supreme Court asking the Court to declare unconstitutional articles 9, 10, 19, 20, 27, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37, and 43 of Law No. 13,869 of September 5, 2019. This Law was approved by the National Congress after overruling 18 vetoes of particular provisions of the Law by President Jair Bolsonaro.
The AMB objected to these articles because they criminalize particular actions of public officials, including magistrates, as abuses of authority.
According to a press release issued by the Association on September 30, 2019, the articles violate several constitutional principles, including
- judicial independence, which gives magistrates the necessary guarantees to perform their judicial function (prestação jurisdicional) by reasoned decisions;
- legal certainty; and
- minimum criminal intervention and proportionality relative to conduct of minimum potential harm.
Furthermore, the Association argues that the Law contains concepts that are abstract, imprecise, and generic, which may lead to several different interpretations and, consequently, create an “undesirable judicial insecurity” in the legal realm.
