Brazil lawyers submit 3.6 thousand signatures against arrests before last appeal
A group of criminal lawyers in Brazil submitted this Monday (Apr. 2) to the country’s Supreme Court a petition against the arrest of convicts before all appeal possibilities are over at appellate courts. The document has 3.6 thousand signatures.
The attorneys call for a change in a 2016 ruling that allows authorities to have convicts start serving their sentences provisionally before all possible appeals are examined by the court.
“No one, absolutely no one at all, is to be considered guilty before all appeals are exhausted. Hence—except in cases of flagrante delicto, or temporary and provisional arrests—a person may only be imprisoned after a definitive conviction, when no further possibilities for trial are available. Whether we like it or not, the principle of presumption of innocence is enshrined by our Constitution,” the attorneys argue.
The drafting of the document was motivated by the habeas corpus petition filed by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s counsel, slated to be examined Wednesday (Mar. 4). The move by Lula’s attorneys is generally seen as an effort to keep the onetime leader from starting to serve his sentence of 12 years and one month, imposed as part of the case surrounding a triplex apartment in coastal Guarujá, São Paulo. The apartment is believed to have been given to Lula as a gift in exchange for favors benefiting construction companies, according to investigators under Operation Car Wash.
On the same day, however, a technical note with 5 signatures was also sent to the Supreme Court calling for arrests ruled by appellate court authorities to be definitive.
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: Brazil lawyers submit 3.6 thousand signatures against arrests before all appeals
