STJ decides on a lawsuit that could recognize the May Crimes as human rights violations
Deaths occurred in the Baixada Santista region in 2006 may lose their statute of limitations this Thursday
Residents protest against a police raid that killed 14 people in Guaruja, some 90 km from Sao Paulo, Brazil, on August 2, 2023. (Photo by Allison Sales / AFP)
This Thursday (4th), the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) will appraise a special appeal (Special Appeal no. 2172497/SP) referring to a Public Civil Lawsuit filed by the São Paulo State Attorney’s Office (MP-SP, acronym in Portuguese) to acknowledge the May Crimes as severe human rights violations, consequently extinguishing the statute of limitations for the purpose of civil accountability and the adoption of measures to prevent repeated offenses.
May Crimes, or “Crimes de Maio”, is the name given to a massacre perpetrated in the Baixada Santista region, in the state of São Paulo, between May 12 and 21, 2006, with the death of over 564 people, leaving another 110 injured, and with at least four cases of forced disappearances. The Special Appeal under appraisal at the STJ was lodged by the São Paulo State Public Defender’s Office and is monitored by Conectas and the Independent “Mães de Maio” (May Mothers) movement as amici curiae.
Even after nearly 20 years of a tireless struggle by relatives of the victims and social movements, all of whom sought justice and reparation, the State was not duly held accountable for the perpetrated crimes, as well as for the omissions and failures in investigating the summary executions and force disappearances that occurred. The mothers who lost their children remain without answers and without any kind of medical, psychosocial or economic assistance.
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The lawsuit was filed by the Social Inclusion Prosecution Office of the São Paulo State Attorney’s Office as an acknowledgment of severe government-level failure to hold public security officers accountable and to protect the most relevant legal assets, such as life and physical integrity, calling for individual compensation to the victim’s families – for both material losses and pain and suffering – as well as collective compensation, in addition to complying with an action-based obligation, consisting of answering the calls for Truth and Justice, under the Transition Justice framework. The recognition of the May Crimes as severe human rights violations has grounds in the very constitutional structure of protecting human dignity, which does not establish a statute of limitations for said protection. This recognition is also based on the understanding that treaties and international covenants that Brazil has signed, such as the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as consolidated case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court HR). With this element secured, there is a permanent obligation of holding the Brazilian government and the officials involved in these deaths accountable. Likewise, victims’ families are thus allowed to secure their right to reparation and compensation.
