STF begins voting on the “green package” but trial is suspended after adjournement request

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) has begun the trail of the “green package”, the nickname that was given to the set of seven lawsuits that deal with socio-environmental issues, signed by opposition parties. 

In a historic vote, Cármen Lúcia, rapporteur of six of the seven proposals and, therefore, the first to speak, said that there is an “Unconstitutional State of Things” (ECI) in the country’s environmental policy. The Justice also criticized the execution of the budget for environmental policies and ordered the government to draw up a new plan to fight deforestation in the country.

The ECI is a judicial decision-making technique created by the Colombian Constitutional Court (CCC) in the context of the negligence of the other powers in the face of violations of fundamental rights. The appeal was first evoked by the STF in 2015, in a case about the Brazilian prison system.

However, the Court suspended the trial due to a request for examination by Justice André Mendonça, which occurs when one of the justices needs more time to decide its vote. On the agenda were the Argument of Noncompliance with Fundamental Rights (ADPF) 760, which calls for the federal government to resume the Plan to Prevent and Combat Deforestation of the Amazon, and the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality by Omission (ADO) 54, which points to the omission of Bolsonaro and the former Minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, regarding the advance of deforestation in the Amazon.