{"id":30179,"date":"2020-11-11T17:33:52","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T17:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/litigio\/"},"modified":"2024-12-12T14:12:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T14:12:59","slug":"litigation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/litigation\/","title":"Litigation","content":"
<\/div>
<\/div>","excerpt":"","author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-litigio.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30179","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"title_transp":"We file cases in court to advance in rights","noticias":{"noticia1":{"ID":30506,"post_author":"26","post_date":"2021-03-24 19:14:01","post_date_gmt":"2021-03-24 19:14:01","post_content":"Supreme Court Justice Lu\u00eds Roberto Barroso observed the occurrence of a \u201crelatively new\u201d phenomenon in democracy in 2019, when he suspended excerpts from a decree issued by President Jair Bolsonaro that altered the structure of Conanda (National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents).\r\n\r\nAccording to him, democratic setbacks in the world today are no longer caused by armed coup d\u2019\u00e9tats. \u201cInstead, the greatest threats to democracy and constitutionalism are the result of specific regulatory changes that appear valid from a formal point of view, which (\u2026) express the adoption of measures that gradually erode the protection of rights and the democratic regime,\u201d said Barroso, citing the book \u201cHow Democracies Die\u201d by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.\r\n\r\nTwo years later, in March 2021, by 10 votes to 1 \u2013 by Justice Marco Aur\u00e9lio Mello \u2013 the Supreme Court voted in line with Barroso and declared unconstitutional the decree reducing the number of people serving on Conanda and hindering the participation by civil society on the council. But this has not been the only such democratic threat.\r\n\r\nAlso in 2019, another presidential decree targeted the structure and functioning of another council: Conama (National Environment Council), the advisory and deliberative body of the National Environment System. The council is one of the most important bodies for Brazilian environmental policy, as it drafts in technical and participatory meetings much of the country\u2019s environmental legislation.\r\n\r\nThe restructuring reduced the number of voting seats from 93 to 23. It also reduced the seats held by non-business civil society organizations from 11 to 4 and shortened the terms of these organizations from two years to just one, while replacing the selection process from election to random draw. As such, environmental organizations, indigenous peoples, traditional populations, the scientific community and rural workers effectively lost space for representation and participation.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis alteration threatens the very existence of the council, since it was created precisely to hear these voices,\u201d said the lawyer J\u00falia Neiva, coordinator of the Development and Socioenvironmental Rights program at Conectas \u2013 who is participating in ADPF Case (Allegation of Violation of a Fundamental Precept) No. 623<\/a><\/strong><\/span> as an amicus curiae (friend of the court), together with the organization WWF and local institutions such as ISA (Socioenvironmental Institute), Transparency International Brazil, Network of Atlantic Forest NGOs and Climate Watch.\r\n\r\nIn March, the Supreme Court also had the opportunity to analyze this change, but the case was interrupteby an adjournment requested by Justice Nunes Marques, with no date forecast for its resumption.\r\n\r\n\u2018Pushing through\u2019 change<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe decree also raises questions because it recalls the famous cabinet meeting of April 2020, when Environment Minister Ricardo Salles suggested taking advantage of the concern with Covid-19 to \u201cpush through\u201d the changes to environmental regulations. \u201cIt seems opportune to remember this comment when we are witnessing the dissolution of yet another space for public monitoring,\u201d said Neiva. \u201cIt\u2019s as if there were a veil covering the situation, because the appearance is one of normalcy, as if the body continued to exist, but as it stands it cannot function in the way it was intended.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlthough the measure is viewed with apprehension, the lawyer said the expectation is that the same standards used in the Conanda case will also be applied to Conama.\r\n\r\nCivil society organizations are key to ensuring respect for two of the most important informal rules of democracy. According to political scientist Jairo Nicolau, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), one of these rules is mutual tolerance; the other is institutional forbearance. \u201cMutual tolerance is to recognize that rivals, if they play by institutional rules, have the same right to exist, to compete for power and to rule. Institutional forbearance means avoiding actions that, while respecting the letter of the law, clearly violate its spirit. In addition to the text of the Constitution, a democracy needs leaders who understand and respect the informal rules,\u201d wrote Nicolau in the preface to the Brazilian edition of Barroso\u2019s referential work \u201cHow Democracies Die,\u201d published by Zahar. Therefore, in the absence of such figures, engagement is needed by players who can remove the veil of illusion shrouding values that are incompatible with popular sovereignty.","post_title":"Conama: how environmental rights die","post_excerpt":"Supreme Court judges the legality of the presidential decree to \u201cpush through\u201d changes, by reducing public participation on the Environment Council","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"conama-how-environmental-rights-die","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-04-14 12:23:08","post_modified_gmt":"2021-04-14 12:23:08","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/?post_type=noticia&p=30506","menu_order":20,"post_type":"noticia","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw","featured_media":25115,"featured_image":{"original":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","thumbnail":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1-150x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1-300x200.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1-768x512.jpg","large":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1-1024x683.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","post_slider_img":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","storyform_xlarge":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","storyform_xxlarge":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","storyform_xxxlarge":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg","noticia":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Vini\u0301cius20Mendonc\u0327a_Ibama1.jpg"},"terms":{"acoes_categorias":[],"acoes_tags":[],"category":[{"term_id":7,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1520,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/category\/news\/","relative_link":"category\/news\/","langs":{"en":"news","br":"noticia-conectas"}}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":12397,"name":"Conama","slug":"conama-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":12397,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/conama-en\/","relative_link":"tag\/conama-en\/","langs":{"en":"conama-en","br":null}},{"term_id":12890,"name":"Conanda","slug":"conanda-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":12890,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/conanda-en\/","relative_link":"tag\/conanda-en\/","langs":{"en":"conanda-en","br":null}},{"term_id":194,"name":"Supreme court","slug":"supreme-court","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":194,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":51,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/tag\/supreme-court\/","relative_link":"tag\/supreme-court\/","langs":{"en":"supreme-court","br":null}}]},"author_name":"Gabriel Guerra","author_nicename":"gabriel-guerra","title":"Conama: how environmental rights die","content":"Supreme Court Justice Lu\u00eds Roberto Barroso observed the occurrence of a \u201crelatively new\u201d phenomenon in democracy in 2019, when he suspended excerpts from a decree issued by President Jair Bolsonaro that altered the structure of Conanda (National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents).\r\n\r\nAccording to him, democratic setbacks in the world today are no longer caused by armed coup d\u2019\u00e9tats. \u201cInstead, the greatest threats to democracy and constitutionalism are the result of specific regulatory changes that appear valid from a formal point of view, which (\u2026) express the adoption of measures that gradually erode the protection of rights and the democratic regime,\u201d said Barroso, citing the book \u201cHow Democracies Die\u201d by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.\r\n\r\nTwo years later, in March 2021, by 10 votes to 1 \u2013 by Justice Marco Aur\u00e9lio Mello \u2013 the Supreme Court voted in line with Barroso and declared unconstitutional the decree reducing the number of people serving on Conanda and hindering the participation by civil society on the council. But this has not been the only such democratic threat.\r\n\r\nAlso in 2019, another presidential decree targeted the structure and functioning of another council: Conama (National Environment Council), the advisory and deliberative body of the National Environment System. The council is one of the most important bodies for Brazilian environmental policy, as it drafts in technical and participatory meetings much of the country\u2019s environmental legislation.\r\n\r\nThe restructuring reduced the number of voting seats from 93 to 23. It also reduced the seats held by non-business civil society organizations from 11 to 4 and shortened the terms of these organizations from two years to just one, while replacing the selection process from election to random draw. As such, environmental organizations, indigenous peoples, traditional populations, the scientific community and rural workers effectively lost space for representation and participation.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis alteration threatens the very existence of the council, since it was created precisely to hear these voices,\u201d said the lawyer J\u00falia Neiva, coordinator of the Development and Socioenvironmental Rights program at Conectas \u2013 who is participating in ADPF Case (Allegation of Violation of a Fundamental Precept) No. 623<\/a><\/strong><\/span> as an amicus curiae (friend of the court), together with the organization WWF and local institutions such as ISA (Socioenvironmental Institute), Transparency International Brazil, Network of Atlantic Forest NGOs and Climate Watch.\r\n\r\nIn March, the Supreme Court also had the opportunity to analyze this change, but the case was interrupteby an adjournment requested by Justice Nunes Marques, with no date forecast for its resumption.\r\n\r\n\u2018Pushing through\u2019 change<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe decree also raises questions because it recalls the famous cabinet meeting of April 2020, when Environment Minister Ricardo Salles suggested taking advantage of the concern with Covid-19 to \u201cpush through\u201d the changes to environmental regulations. \u201cIt seems opportune to remember this comment when we are witnessing the dissolution of yet another space for public monitoring,\u201d said Neiva. \u201cIt\u2019s as if there were a veil covering the situation, because the appearance is one of normalcy, as if the body continued to exist, but as it stands it cannot function in the way it was intended.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlthough the measure is viewed with apprehension, the lawyer said the expectation is that the same standards used in the Conanda case will also be applied to Conama.\r\n\r\nCivil society organizations are key to ensuring respect for two of the most important informal rules of democracy. According to political scientist Jairo Nicolau, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), one of these rules is mutual tolerance; the other is institutional forbearance. \u201cMutual tolerance is to recognize that rivals, if they play by institutional rules, have the same right to exist, to compete for power and to rule. Institutional forbearance means avoiding actions that, while respecting the letter of the law, clearly violate its spirit. In addition to the text of the Constitution, a democracy needs leaders who understand and respect the informal rules,\u201d wrote Nicolau in the preface to the Brazilian edition of Barroso\u2019s referential work \u201cHow Democracies Die,\u201d published by Zahar. Therefore, in the absence of such figures, engagement is needed by players who can remove the veil of illusion shrouding values that are incompatible with popular sovereignty.","excerpt":"Supreme Court judges the legality of the presidential decree to \u201cpush through\u201d changes, by reducing public participation on the Environment Council","langs":{"en":"litigation","pt":"litigation"},"permalink":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/conama-how-environmental-rights-die\/","relative_url":"https:\/\/conectas.org\/en\/noticias\/conama-how-environmental-rights-die\/"},"noticia2":{"ID":28469,"post_author":"2","post_date":"2021-02-26 20:46:07","post_date_gmt":"2021-02-26 20:46:07","post_content":"On Thursday, February 25, Conectas and Miss\u00e3o Paz filed a representation petition with the Federal Prosecutor\u2019s Office requesting an investigation into the discriminatory closure of land borders for refugees coming from Venezuela.\r\n\r\nDocuments produced by Anvisa (National Health Regulatory Agency) reveal that there was no guidance from the regulator to put segregated bans on the entry of people to Brazil from border countries during the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.\r\n\r\nThe documents were sent to Conectas in response to a technical opinion<\/strong><\/span><\/a> produced by Cepedisa\u00a0(Center for Research on Health Law of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo) and addressed to the agency in December last year. The study demonstrated that the restrictions imposed by the federal government through decrees published over the course of 2020 are not based on legal or health grounds<\/strong>.<\/span><\/a>\r\n\r\nIn response to the technical opinion, the agency declared that \u201cthere are no recommendations to segregate any border country\u201d. However, the current decree issued by the federal government (no. 652, of January 25, 2021)<\/strong><\/a><\/span> places restrictions on migrants coming from Venezuela. The decree also imposes restrictions on people from the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and South Africa, but in these cases due to the new strains of the coronavirus.\r\n\r\nAccording to a technical statement from the Coordination Office of Epidemiological Surveillance in Ports, Airports, Borders and Customs Facilities - COVIG, in response to the Official Letter from Conectas, \u201cthe restrictions referring to travelers from or who have spent time in the past fourteen days in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of South Africa, were recommended to CCSMI [Crisis Committee for the Supervision and Monitoring of the Impacts of Covid-19] by Anvisa, based on the precautionary principle, due to warnings issued by the WHO regarding the identification of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 in those countries. The restrictions on foreigners from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are not contained in any of the documents presented by Anvisa to support the decision-making process of the aforementioned Committee.\u201d\r\n