STF authorizes use of judicial deposits to pay court orders By Reuters

2023-10-03 01:40:46

© Reuters. STF Plenary 02/08/2012 REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Maria Carolina Marcello

BRASÍLIA (Reuters) – The Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided, in a virtual trial, to authorize the use of judicial deposits to pay late court orders.

In a unanimous position, the court rejected Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) offered by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which considered the use of these resources an appropriation of someone else’s assets and a violation of property rights.

This was not, however, the position of the ministers, who followed the vote of the rapporteur, minister Luís Roberto Barroso, validating the wording of the Constitutional Amendment that allows the possibility for States, the Federal District and municipalities to use up to 75% of judicial deposits linked to processes in which they are a party and 20% of other judicial deposits — except those of a food nature — for the payment of overdue court orders.

The virtual trial ended last Friday, according to a report from the STF.

Last Monday, the Attorney General’s Office of the Union (AGU) sent a statement to the Supreme Court in which it defends the partial unconstitutionality of constitutional amendments that created an annual ceiling for the payment of court orders from 2022 to 2026, in addition to obliging the Union to accept credits from final and unappealable decisions such as payment of grants and the purchase of public properties.

AGU’s positioning occurred within the scope of two ADIs under discussion in the STF. Precatório are debts that the Union has due to court decisions.

The ceiling was established by a legislative initiative by Jair Bolsonaro’s government, which in 2021 stated that there was not enough budget space to cover the payment of around 89.1 billion reais in court orders in 2022.

With the help of a technical note formulated by the Ministry of Finance, the AGU argued that the ceiling for court orders produced “a significant and growing volume of artificially held back expenses”, to be paid only in 2027.