ENOUGH!

Since his inauguration, President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly violated his oath to preserve, protect, and defend Brazil's Constitution. As if his obsession with subverting the democratic order and the basic rules of the Rule of Law were not enough, the president has neglected his political and legal responsibilities in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing, through his actions and omissions, to the illness of millions of Brazilians and the death, to date, of more than 215,000 people.

President Bolsonaro has been striving since the beginning of his government to deepen political polarization, dividing the country into friends and enemies. With truculent rhetoric, based on cruelty to the most vulnerable, racism, obscurantism, and exaltation of violence, weapons, and dictatorship, he daily attacks the fundamental pillars of our Republic, as established by Article 1 of the Brazilian Constitution.

The president has spared no effort to destabilize our institutions. He has participated in acts and encouraged groups that propose the closing of the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court, which constitutes a crime of responsibility as foreseen in Article 6, items 1 and 5, of Law 10,079 of 1950. Equally serious have been his insidious manifestations inciting animosity between the armed forces and civilian institutions, which constitute another crime of responsibility, foreseen in Articles 7 and 8, of Law 10,079 of 1950.

President Bolsonaro has also been subverting the Constitution by making appointments incompatible with the duties to be performed, by issuing decrees, regulations, and administrative acts, and by intimidating civil servants. This strategy to frustrate the Constitution’s purpose is evident in the environmental, Indigenous, and arms control fields, and in human rights, educational, cultural, public security, and intelligence policies.

The instrumentalization of the security apparatus to serve the personal interests of the president, as well as the shameful omission of the Prosecutor General of the Republic to investigate common crimes committed by the President of the Republic, also point to this serious process of erosion of our institutions.

As a result of a disastrous foreign policy, contrary to international cooperation, human rights, and the environment, Brazil has been placing itself in a position of a true international pariah. This has serious consequences for our economy and catastrophic impacts on the fight against the pandemic. The delay in obtaining vaccines is a direct result of the disastrous foreign policy led by Jair Bolsonaro and his staff.

By systematically disregarding the seriousness of the pandemic; by encouraging overcrowding; by disregarding and not complying with prevention measures determined by health authorities; by boycotting the production and procurement of the vaccine; by discrediting the vaccines themselves; by determining the manufacture, distribution, and treatment by means of a drug proven ineffective in combating or preventing COVID-19; as well as failing to make every financial and logistical effort to ensure the emergency care of those who are sick, President Bolsonaro has clearly perpetrated several “ordinary crimes” and “crimes of responsibility”, such as those provided in Articles 132 and 268 of the Penal Code, in Article 85, item III, of the Federal Constitution, and Articles 7 and 9, of Law 10,079 of 1950.

As we had already stated in a Public Note from the Arns Commission, issued on May 19, 2020, Jair Bolsonaro has lost the minimum conditions to legitimately exercise the presidential mandate, due to his absolute incapacity, authoritarian vocation, constitutional insubordination, and constant threat to democracy and people's lives. Since then, the situation has only worsened.

For these reasons, the Arns Commission calls on all those truly committed to democracy and the right to life – citizens, civil society organizations, political parties, business and religious organizations, and, above all, the fundamental institutions of the Republic, such as the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court, and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic – to assume their share of responsibility in the defense of the democratic regime and the Constitution, against the attacks that have been directed against them by the President of the Republic. It is necessary to put a stop to this misgovernment that has caused so much harm to the lives of Brazilians and to our democracy.

Article originally published in the newspaper O Globo, on January 24, 2021