On Thursday (19), Brazil’s Public Ministry, also known as MPF, argued that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should fully veto the bill that establishes the time frame thesis for demarcating Indigenous lands. Brazilian Senate approved the bill in September. Lula must decide on the issue by today (20).
In a statement, MPF’s Chamber of Indigenous Populations and Traditional Communities argued that the thesis is unconstitutional, and any change of this kind cannot be made through ordinary law.
“The bill restricts the exercise of rights guaranteed to Indigenous peoples by the Constitution, which cannot be altered by law. Furthermore, since these are fundamental rights, they are immutable clauses whose alteration, therefore, would not be possible even through a proposed amendment to the Constitution,” says MPF.
The MPF highlights that the thesis was already considered unconstitutional by the majority of Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF, in Portuguese). “The so-called time frame thesis was rejected by the Supreme Court. It was presented by a bill to restrict the recognition of traditional peoples’ occupation of Indigenous lands that were not possessed by them on October 5, 1988,” added the MPF.
The legal thesis proposed by the agribusiness sector prohibits the demarcation of areas that were not occupied by Indigenous peoples when Brazil’s Constitution was promulgated (October 5, 1988). Of all the 11 ministers of the Supreme Court, 9 stated that the Constitution provides no time criteria to validate land demarcations. The only ones in favor of the time frame thesis were Nunes Marques and André Mendonça, both nominated to the STF by Jair Bolsonaro.
Currently, the Supreme Court’s understanding of the matter is what prevails, since the bill did not become a law yet. However, after becoming a law, it can only be applied in conflicts that arise after the legislation comes into force. Even so, it may be challenged by the STF.
Partial victory for Indigenous peoples in Brazil
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) partially vetoed the bill establishing the time frame thesis for demarcating Indigenous lands. The decision was taken on Friday (20), the last day Lula had to decide on the veto. Lula said he had barred the time criterion for land demarcation, which was declared unconstitutional by Brazil’s Supreme Court, but maintained other topics of the bill, which are considered setbacks by Indigenous peoples' organizations. They called for a full veto. The president did not detail which articles were vetoed or sanctioned. The decision was published in Brazil’s Federal Register (DOU, in Portuguese) on Friday (20) or may be published in the next few days.
