Brazil's Supreme Court Freezes Impeachment Campaign in the Lower House of Congress

10/14/2015 - 09h26

Brazilian Supreme Court stopped the strategy outlined by the opposition with the speaker of the lower house of congress, Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), to start an impeachment proceeding against President Dilma Rousseff.

In three decisions of provisional nature, Ministers Teori Zavascki and Rosa Weber suspended on Tuesday (13) the application of rules set by Cunha to proceed with requests for Rousseff's removal.

With that, the President has more time to come up with a political strategy to defend her mandate.

The plan was to use a petition submitted by jurists Hélio Bicudo and Miguel Reale Júnior. Cunha would file the petition to disguise his fingerprints on the initiative, and then the opposition would proceed with the impeachment request in the plenary of the lower house of congress.

The procedures necessary for the impeachment were defined by Cunha in late September, but governing members turned to the Supreme Court to question some points.

Ministers Zavascki and Weber accepted the legal actions based on the argument that Cunha set new rules, different from what is stated in the Constitution regarding crimes of responsibility and the rules of the lower house.

Impeachment rules have already been applied against former President Fernando Collor (1990-1992). However, some details are not clear.

Rousseff will only be removed if the impeachment request is approved by at least 342 of 513 federal deputies. If this occurs, the President will be prosecuted and tried by the Senate, which will have 180 days to decide the case.

Translated by JULIANA CALDERARI

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	Alan Marques/Folhapress
	Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ) is the speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress