Strike movement that paralyzes the country – National Security Law?

It is well known that the constitutional right to strike is not absolute; on the contrary, the legislation itself imposes restrictions for some categories and allows for the consideration of certain forms of strike as illegal or abusive.

The right to strike cannot infringe upon individual and social freedoms, as the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil itself presents express limitations to the right to strike. One of these limitations concerns what is understood as essential services or activities, which is defined by the Strike Law in Article 10 (Law 7783/89). This circumstantial qualification is important for the strike movement to be considered constitutional and consequently legal. The other restriction is provided for in Article 9, § 2 of the CRFB/88, in which strike actions, however widely permitted, do not imply normative permission for abusive, violent, or similar acts by strikers.

Article 10. The following are considered essential services or activities:

I - Water treatment and supply; production and distribution of electricity, gas and fuels;
II - medical and hospital care;
III - distribution and sale of medicines and food;
IV - funeral homes;
V - public transportation;
VI - Sewage and waste collection and treatment;
VII - telecommunications;
VIII - custody, use and control of radioactive substances, equipment and nuclear materials;
IX - processing of data related to essential services;
X - air traffic control;
XI. Bank clearing.

Society is in a state of social collapse. The most diverse essential activities, the bare minimum necessary for existence in accordance with the principle of human dignity, are no longer being realized. We are bordering on a state of barbarism; we are in a state of pre-violence, struggling to put food on our tables daily for our survival.

It is intolerable that behind this social madness, which has plagued the country, there are clear tendencies of partisan political financing that thrive on chaos with overwhelming, electioneering aims. There is a clear attack against the Democratic Rule of Law when they try to make us resemble populist cantons without (effective) laws, such as Venezuela.

Betting on complete social chaos with the aim of boycotting a particular political administration is not only immoral but also a crime against national security, not only because of the facts themselves, but also because of the consequences they produce. We are experiencing a typical case of anti-social politics aimed at destroying not just an administration, but a country, and this cannot be tolerated in a democratic state governed by the rule of law.

Law No. 7.170, of December 14, 1983, defines crimes against national security, political and social order, establishes their process and judgment, and provides other measures.

We have compiled several articles that are fully applicable to our understanding of this coup disguised as a strike movement. We also emphasize that we are astonished by the sheer ineffectiveness of the Supreme Federal Court, which should have already issued a definitive ruling as the guardian of the Constitution, the Democratic Rule of Law, and society.

Article 1 - This Law provides for crimes that cause harm or expose to the risk of harm:

I - territorial integrity and national sovereignty;
II - the representative and democratic regime, the Federation and the Rule of Law;
III - the person of the heads of the Powers of the Union.
Article 4 - The following are circumstances that always aggravate the penalty, when they are not elements of the crime:
I - being a repeat offender;
II - the agent must:
a) the crime was committed with the assistance, of any kind, of a government, international organization or foreign groups;
b) promoted, organized or directed the activity of others, in the case of joint action by agents.

Article 15 - To commit sabotage against military installations, means of communication, means and routes of transport, shipyards, ports, airports, factories, power plants, dams, depots and other similar installations.

Penalty: imprisonment, from 3 to 10 years.
§ 1 - If the fact results in:
a) serious bodily injury, the penalty is increased by up to half;
b) damage, destruction or neutralization of means of defense or security; total or partial paralysis of activities or public services deemed essential for the defense, security or economy of the country, the penalty is increased up to double;
c) death, the penalty is increased up to three times.
§ 2 - Preparatory acts of sabotage are punishable by a reduction of the penalty stipulated in this article, if the act does not constitute a more serious crime.
Article 17 - Attempting to change, through the use of violence or serious threat, the order, the current regime, or the rule of law.
Penalty: imprisonment, from 3 to 15 years.
Art. 23 - Inciting:
I - the subversion of the political or social order;
II - animosity between the Armed Forces or between them and social classes or civil institutions;
III - the violent struggle between social classes;
IV - the commission of any of the crimes provided for in this Law.
Penalty: imprisonment, from 1 to 4 years.

Thus, we understand, in more than one classification as we have explained, that the application of the National Security Law is imperative for this movement that bets on social chaos in order to enrich itself electorally in the next elections. Regarding the terms "essential public activities and services," we are working with a cause-and-effect relationship. The truckers' strike, already abusive and illegal, produces the effect typified in subparagraph b of article 15, paragraph 1. And it does not deviate from the principle of strict legality in criminal law, since the strike did in fact affect public activities and services.

We conclude this brief outline by emphasizing that, despite the existence of defensible and even justifiable demands from truck drivers, there is an absolute loss of legitimacy when the strike movement, with electoral aims, places society in a state of indignity and induces a threat of profound collapse to the Democratic Rule of Law, acting in the most absurd and clear deviation from its intended purpose. This deliberate paralysis of the country has long qualified the current strike as illegal and reckless for the future socio-economic recovery of the State. We have a typical constitutional right exercised unconstitutionally through excess and deviation from its intended purpose, when a professional category is not granted the right to paralyze an entire country under the guise of parallel subsidies for criminal political-electoral purposes.

And don't bring us the flimsy argument that this is legislation dating back to the military period, because, as we usually assert, current legislation is applicable legislation, and therefore always eager for effectiveness, until it is revoked by a competent legal or political decision. It should be added that it was only specifically repealed in the provisions that essentially reflected the period of military rule, having already been, on several occasions, a paradigm for analysis of its constitutionality by the Supreme Federal Court.