Last Thursday (23), the Committee on the Constitution and Justice and Citizenship approved the Substitution Bill 301/07, proposed by Deputy Dr. Rosinha (PT-PR), which classifies crimes against human rights, defined according to the Rome Statute, and regulates the judiciary cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has the jurisdiction to judge those crimes, also according to that statute.

That bill establishes the penalties for the crimes of trespassing international humanitarian law, which are genocide, war crimes and crimes against mankind. According to that bill, which is now being forwarded for the House Floor’s review, the various modalities of those three crimes will result in reclusion penalties of up to 30 years.

The substitution bill, by its rapporteur, Deputy Antonio Carlos Biscaia (PT-RJ) uses devices of the amendment by the Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense, and of the Bill 4038/08, by the Executive Power, which handles the same subject and is being processed as an annex.

The first of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Foreign Relations establishes that the crimes provided for are considered as military crimes, and therefore belong to the jurisdiction of Military Justice, always when provided for in the Military Criminal Code. It is the case, for instance, of torture crimes.

Another amendment handles the recruitment or forced enrolment of minors. According to the text, the forced recruitment of people younger than 18 years old, and the voluntary recruitment of those younger than 15 years old, are forbidden.

Other amendments relate to the classification of war crimes, in case of actions of “severe trespassing of the Geneva Convention of August 12th, 1949”.

Effective participation
According to the author of the bill, Brazil is in debt with the international community, since it hasn’t integrally participated in the jurisdiction of ICC so far. Dr. Rosinha reminds that, despite the ratification of the Rome Statute in 2002, the government has not yet adapted its internal legislation to the international jurisdiction. “As long as that does not happen, there will be no effective participation in the International Criminal Court, which is a great setback, since that court is one of the main conquests of mankind”, he argues.

That deputy stresses that the international court has an exceptional character, and that its jurisdiction is complementary to the one of the states, which means that its power will only be exerted when countries are unable to do it, or lack devices in their criminal systems to punish criminals.

The rapporteur on the bill, Antonio Carlos Biscaia, stresses that those crimes under the ICC competency are imprescriptible, and that the broadening of the scope of those crimes, established in the Constitution, is possible, because it is compatible with the human-rights treaties signed by Brazil. He also affirms that the crimes described in the bill are in general in harmony with the desire of the constituents, which is to render imprescriptible all actions of armed groups – be they civilian or military– against the constitutional order and the Democratic State.

Report - Oscar Telles
Editing - Marcos Rossi
Translation – Positive Idiomas Ltda