Committee dismisses complaint against Dilma's trip.

247 - The Ethics Committee of the Presidency unanimously decided to shelve a request for an investigation against President Dilma Rousseff (PT) regarding a stopover in Portugal on Saturday, during a trip between Davos, Switzerland, and Havana, Cuba. The request for representation was made by the PSDB yesterday, but on the same day the president justified the stop (which was made for refueling the plane and due to weather conditions).

In the lawsuit, the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) stated that the president violated the Code of Conduct for Senior Federal Administration officials by staying at a luxury hotel without official engagements and without disclosing her official agenda. However, the president of the Ethics Committee, Américo Lacombe, informed that the committee does not have the authority to investigate the Presidency of the Republic and, therefore, the complaint was summarily dismissed.

"We don't have the authority to judge either the president or the vice-president, only ministers of state and below. It's in the law and there's no way to change it. The regulation wasn't created by President Lula, it was created by [former] President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. If the congressman wants to complain, let him go complain to his party leader," said Lacombe.

Although he could investigate the ministers who accompanied the president during the trip, Lacombe stated that he will only order any type of analysis if there is another formal complaint. "I don't see any reason to conduct an investigation on my own initiative because, to begin with, they were there accompanying the president, so they were assisting her. And the fact that they had dinner isn't a problem at all, as long as they pay," he said.