Moro on second instance rulings: The Constitution should not be interpreted literally.

247 - During his participation in an event in São Paulo, this Thursday (7), the now Minister of Justice and Public Security, Sergio Moro, said that he does not believe that the Supreme Federal Court (STF) will change the current understanding which, contrary to what the Constitution says, allows the imprisonment of a person convicted in the second instance. 

The issue is to be discussed by the Supreme Court in April, as some justices who voted for imprisonment have expressed a desire to resume the discussion in light of the series of arbitrary actions generated by the decision. This is because the issue ended up being interpreted as an automatic determination of imprisonment by lower courts, which violates the constitutional text that states that the sentence should begin to be served only after the final judgment of the sentence.

Moro argued that the Constitution does not need to be interpreted literally and, even after the pronouncements of Supreme Court justices, the 2016 decision should be considered definitive. "I may be wrong, but I don't believe the Supreme Court will change its understanding," the minister stated, according to a report by [source name missing]. UOL.

Despite believing there will be no change, Moro proposes that imprisonment after a second instance conviction be enshrined in law. The measure was proposed in the preliminary draft of the "fight against corruption," presented by him last week.

The minister argues that imprisonment after a second instance conviction does not violate the principle of presumption of innocence, as some legal experts refute. According to him, there are "escape clauses" in his proposal.

Supreme Court justices, such as the senior member Celso de Mello, have already criticized Moro's proposal.