In a public hearing held on the Monday morning (22) by the Commission on Citizenship and on Human Rights of the Parlasur, the representative of civil society, Daniella Hiche, proposed reference to the law of the Clean Sheet in the Annual Report on the situation of Human Rights for member countries of the bloc, as stated in the constitutive protocol. "Mentioning such law in the report is relevant to apply it to the Parlasur parliamentarians," he said.

The Law of Clean Sheet (Complementary Law 135/10), adopted in 2010 by the Brazilian Congress, was a popular initiative aimed at establishing moral, ethical, and criminal criteria to be considered to assess the candidatures. "The citizenship has a right to a truly democratic representation. The Law of Clean Sheet is a breakthrough and can be taken as a reference," stated Hiche.

Direct election
At the meeting, held in the Senate, senator Geraldo Mesquita emphasized that the committee needs to discuss the proposed elections to the Mercosur. "We have to discuss elections and proportionality. Brazil is preparing to take a step that Paraguay has already taken," he said.

According to the senator, we must clarify that the direct election to Parlasur will be the first opportunity to discuss and expand the Mercosur topic and regional parliament. "The topic is still adequate for big capital and big business, and still represents scarcely any to most population. This election, in fact, will bring the discussion to the population learn about Mercosur and its effects and impacts concerning regional structure."

Developments In her speech, the representative of the Committee on Human Rights and on International Policy of the Baha'i Community, Daniella Hiche, also proposed to use technological tools, i.e. the Internet, to access and take part in the process. "It is necessary to clarify the political role and how will be the report approach within other countries, being informative and with legitimacy and respect among member countries and other countries and multilateral organizations," she justified. According to her, the Parlasur must consider facts involving violation of human rights anywhere in the world.
The chairperson of the Citizenship and Human Rights, Mirtha Palacios (Paraguay), suggested that the document being prepared has civil society participation. "We want to develop a participating work. It is important to involve civil society for the next hearing."

During the meeting, the deputy Geraldo Thadeu quoted the need to research on the prison systems of the bloc countries to mention it in the report of Parlasur commission. He showed his experiences on visits to jails in São Luis (State of Maranhão, Brazil), which recently went through a rebellion and resulted in many deaths: "Inmates are killing themselves. The riot caused many deaths, some were beheaded. Soon we will have the death penalty instituted in Brazil."
Concerning the report, Thadeu also suggests other topics, e.g. health financing system, situation of psychiatric hospitals, illegal drug trade, and pedophilia.

With the same aim of helping the preparation of the document, the parliamentary committee has held hearings in Paraguay and in Argentina. The final hearing will take place at Uruguay on 9 December. It is expected that the report will be ready next year.