Brazilian Bar Association to File a Request for Impeachment against President Michel Temer

05/22/2017 - 11h45

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LUCAS VETTORAZZO

FROM BRASÍLIA

The Federal Council of the Brazilian bar association (OAB- the Order of Attorneys of Brazil) decided to support the impeachment of President Michel Temer and drew up a request to be filed at the House of Representatives.

President Michel Temer is already facing at least eight impeachment requests filed in the Lower House.

The Brazilian Bar Association set up a commission with four councilors to analyze the documents disclosed on Wednesday, May 17, by the country's Supreme Court (STF) on the plea bargain signed by the Batista brothers, the owners of JBS, the world's biggest meatpacking company.

The commission's rapporteur, Flavio Pansieri (Party of the Republic), read a report in which he considered that President Temer committed an impeachable offense in a part of the conversation with businessman Joesley Batista in which Batista says that he has two Lava Jato judges and a prosecutor in his hands.

Batista also said that he received information leaked by the task force and asked the government for favors in the economic area. Regarding this case, Temer told Batista to contact federal legislator Roberto Loures (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), later arrested with suitcases filled with money paid by the company.

The councilors interpreted that the president was neglectful as he did not denounce the crimes he heard about in the meeting. Temer then committed offical misconduct.

BACKGROUND

The Brazilian Bar Association is the biggest civil society body in the country. It was the OAB, along with ABI (Brazilian Press Association), which filed the impeachment request against former president Fernando Collor de Mello in 1992.

The council also approved the impeachment request against another president, Dilma Rousseff, in March 2016. In the case of Rousseff, however, the request accepted by the Lower House was not drawn up by the OAB, but by jurists Miguel Realle Júnior and Janaína Paschoal.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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