Author: Hélio Duque

Source: Paraná Online - Curitiba / PR - COLUMNS - 08/05/2010

144 years ago, on 7/1/1866, the notable novelist José de Alencar published a manifesto of great relevance for the current times. In it he stated: “The depravity of the Legislative Power and the dependence on the Judiciary on the one hand and the exorbitance of the Executive, on the other, paralyzed, among us, the representative government. The people's atony and their political rudeness, together with the amazing development and corruption of the bureaucratic element, give evil a frightening enormity ”.

Militant politician in the Second Empire, where he was a deputy and Minister of Justice, his name was vetoed by Pedro II, to assume the seat of senator for his native State, Ceará. Journalist, lawyer and writer of the most important of Brazilian literature, he expressed his condemnation and disgust at the exorbitance of the Executive. When qualifying the Legislative of that depraved time, it was extrapolating the time of its diatribes and projecting what would, in many cases, be the future.

The atony of society consolidates the law of silence, as an authentic “omertà”, equal to the Sicilian “cosa nostra”. Banning transparency and replacing the transmission chain of smart trickery instead. In his book “Culture of Transgressions in Brazil”, sociologist Bolívar Lamounier conceptualizes that the veins of corruption in the bowels of the Brazilian State are deeply rooted. He states: “Brazil is essentially corrupt and we need to face it. We have lived for a hundred years the illusion that with economic growth and educational improvement everything will improve. The country is richer and, apparently, more corrupt ”.

Lamounier abundantly analyzes that the problem of corruption is tentative and that impunity is widespread. State patrimonialism requires a symbiotic relationship between the business world and the government, which is present in fundamental sectors of the economy and the inability to apply the law is basically due to economic motivation. The so-called “white collar crime” is based on money laundering, tax evasion and differentiated fraud. Experienced prosecutor Roberto Livianu, a member of the Federal Public Ministry, notes: “The line between public and private has been lost. And this is very harmful. There is a swelling today in the number of positions of trust. The point is that the justice does not prioritize the conviction of accused of white-collar crime, unlike what happens with someone who killed. And this is curious, as these crimes divert millions of public coffers that could be channeled to health and education ”.

In every democratic state, in the isosceles triangle of power, the Legislative corresponds to the right angle, while the Executive and the Judiciary are adjacent angles. In the trigonometry of the powers, what comes first is the Legislative, which should be supervisory, drafting of laws and the budget to be fulfilled by the Executive. The Judiciary is responsible for supervising and observing compliance with the law. In Brazil everything is reversed, the adjacent powers have become legislators. The Executive legislates, via provisional measures. The Judiciary, with the judicialization of politics, took on legislative power. The National Congress is solely responsible for the advance of this institutional coup that has been generating dramatic consequences. By relinquishing their prerogatives, congressmen transformed Parliament into decorative power. Resigning from the classic concept of popular representativeness, the debate on major national issues is omitted and the inspection function of the Executive acts is bent. The vast majority of parliamentarians are unaware and ignore the constitutional strength of their power. In the USA, for example, the President of the Republic cannot adopt or approve any economic or administrative action that is not approved by Congress. Here the reality is different, parliamentarians live with saucers in hand, begging for funds for their parish works. They are not legislators, they are luxury dispatchers with a popular mandate.

Hélio Duque holds a PhD in Sciences, economics, from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). He was a federal deputy (1978-1991). He is the author of several books on the Brazilian economy.