Former governor of Esp\u00edrito Santo, economist and RenovaBR Advisor, Paulo Hartung shares, in an interview, his vision regarding the repercussions of the so-called PEC da Blindagem (PEC 3\/2021). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PEC, which had been approved under an urgent regime by the Chamber of Deputies last week, was unanimously rejected by the Constitution and Justice Committee of the Federal Senate, this Wednesday (24), after reading the report prepared by the senator and RenovaBR leader, Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE). With that, the proposal must be archived in the house, putting an end to the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill sought to restrict the role of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and make the initiation of criminal proceedings against members of parliament conditional upon prior authorization from Congress. The bill was heavily criticized by senators, experts, and civil society. Hartung believes the measure represents an institutional setback and threatens the already challenging balance between representatives and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What would be the main risks of the Shielding Amendment Proposal for Brazilian democracy? And what are the consequences for transparency and accountability of parliamentarians?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The constitutional amendment (PEC) for shielding the economy is a huge mistake. This would be bad for the country and its democratic institutions at any time. But at a time like the present, when Brazil faces enormous economic and social challenges, it is even more serious. Congress should be seeking solutions to problems affecting the population\u2014such as the burden of interest rates\u2014but instead, it prefers to discuss a mechanism that protects members of parliament from prosecution for crimes committed. In common parlance, it's the opposite of the opposite of the opposite. I hope this mistake will be corrected in the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does a measure like this affect the relationship between elected representatives and the population?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the greatest challenges facing democracies worldwide is precisely the distance between representatives and those they represent. What we need is to strengthen institutions to bring society closer to its representatives. A constitutional amendment like this goes against the grain and further alienates the population from politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must take advantage of new technologies and advances in knowledge to strengthen the mechanisms of representative democracy. Parliament should be addressing this, not creating protective barriers for itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind of political reforms does Brazil need to strengthen democracy and reconnect society and politics?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We've made progress recently. It took time, we stumbled over our own feet, but we have made progress. Despite recent advances, such as the party performance clause and the end of coalitions in proportional elections, we still need to make further progress. An important step is adopting mixed-member district voting. This model would make campaigns cheaper and increase social control over the work of parliamentarians. It's also crucial to reduce the number of parties, strengthening them as programmatic institutions rather than as agglomerations of leaders. Regarding the system of government, I believe Brazil will continue with a presidential system, as parliamentarism was rejected in previous plebiscites. In this scenario, it's essential to improve the institutions of presidentialism to ensure greater connection between representatives and those they represent. After all, the mandate doesn't belong to the parliamentarian: it's a proxy granted by society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What message would you leave to society about the importance of monitoring and questioning proposals like this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I'd like to highlight the mobilization of civil society. They took to the streets, occupied social media, and it made a difference. My experience shows that whenever society engages, it contributes to changing the country's course. This is an important lesson learned from this moment. We can't just sit idly by. We need a society that's active in the national debate, because when it participates, it helps write the history of Brazil and the world.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former governor of Esp\u00edrito Santo, economist and advisor to RenovaBR, Paulo Hartung shares, in an interview, his view on the repercussions of the so-called "Shielding Amendment" (PEC 3\/2021). The amendment, which had been approved under urgency by the Chamber of Deputies last week, was unanimously rejected by the Senate's Constitution and Justice Committee [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destaques","category-noticias"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.renovabr.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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