|
By a vote of 9 to 1, the Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal) (STF) ruled Thursday, February 16, that Brazil's constitution does prohibit nepotism in the Judiciary branch of government.
According to the Chief Justice of the court, Nelson Jobim, the STF ruling makes it mandatory for all relatives of judges to be fired beginning today and nullifies all prior court injunctions to the contrary. Some 700 injunctions have recently been issued allowing relatives who have not passed civil service exams to remain in their jobs. The Brazilian equivalent of the bipartisan watchdog Government Accountability Office, the "Tribunal de Contas da União" (TCU), will have the task of monitoring the situation in the Judiciary branch now that the Supreme Court has outlawed nepotism there. One of the first things that will happen is administrative action by the TCU against any courts that do not immediately cut off the salaries of relatives of judges who have not passed civil service exams. It is estimated that there are more than 1,800 relatives of judges on court payrolls around the country. Before the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, some 700 of them had gotten court injunctions allowing them to remain in their jobs, receiving their salaries. According to the Chief Justice, Nelson Jobim, all those injunctions are now null. The relatives must go and if they don't the judges in the courts where they are employed will be held administratively responsible, declared Jobim, adding that besides the TCU, the government legal department (Ministério Público) will be put into action to ensure that the Supreme Court ruling is complied with. The president of the Association of Labor Court Judges (Associação Nacional dos Magistrados da Justiça Trabalhista) (Anamatra), José Nilton Pandelot, praised the ruling by the Supreme Court against nepotism, pointing out that it consolidates the authority of the National Justice Council (Conselho Nacional de Justiça) (CNJ) as a Judiciary branch administrative agency The suit against nepotism in the Judiciary branch that the Supreme Court accepted was brought by the CNJ]. Pandelot went on to say that he intends to join forces with the Brazilian Judges Association (Associação dos Magistrados Brasileiros) (AMB) and sponsor a bill for a constitutional amendment that will eliminate nepotism in all branches of government. ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
Why is nepotism become illegal ONLY in the judiciary system !
Thousands and thousands of relatives of important political people work in various department of the government, in the Brasilia, or in the various states, various cities and various localities !!!!!!
No change there. Not a word. It is soon election time and no one wants to reduce his chance of loosing votes.
THEREFORE THE REDUCTION IN NEPOTISM IS JUST.....MINIMAL !!!!!!!