São Paulo prosecutors in crisis over Alckmin.

SP247 - The atmosphere between São Paulo state prosecutors and Governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) is, at the very least, tense. This afternoon, professionals in the field are protesting at the São Paulo Legislative Assembly against a bill that, according to them, reduces the autonomy of the class to give opinions on government contracts, in addition to hierarchizing the career. Bill 25/2013 was authored by the State Attorney General, Elival da Silva Ramos, and has the approval of Alckmin, who asked Parliament to process it under an expedited procedure.

The unease between prosecutors and the governor of São Paulo, as well as the attorney general, began with the lawsuit filed against Siemens, a confessed defendant in the cartel scheme in bidding processes for the Metro and CPTM (Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos). The lawsuit prosecuted only the German multinational in a scheme that involved several others. A "political" action, which served only to give a quick response to the population, but which ended up embarrassing the class, in the definition of prosecutor Márcia Semer (read here interview to 247)

Read the report below from Current Brazil Network Regarding the protest scheduled for this Tuesday:

Protest at São Paulo State Assembly against bill that undermines the role of prosecutors.

Prosecutors in São Paulo will hold a demonstration this Tuesday, the 12th, starting at 14 PM, at the Legislative Assembly against Complementary Law Project 25/2013, authored by the state's Attorney General, Elival da Silva Ramos. Governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) requested last week that Parliament expedite the proposal's processing. The professionals primarily contest three aspects of the text: the concentration of power in the figure of the Attorney General, the loss of autonomy for prosecutors to evaluate and comment on government contracts (potentially compromising the integrity of these contracts), and the hierarchization of the career path.

PLC 25, whose pretext is to reorganize and modernize the State Attorney General's Office, significantly centralizes decision-making powers in the hands of the State Attorney General, including regarding the allocation (workplace of the attorneys). This will weaken the technical independence of these professionals. This situation paves the way for the political manipulation of the Attorney General's Office. Attorneys become hostages to political decisions, losing the ability to conduct technical analyses of the legality of policies proposed by government officials.

The assessment of São Paulo prosecutors committed to the independence of their work is that, being dependent on the Attorney General even regarding their area of ​​expertise, they would always have to act in a way that pleases the governor and the Attorney General himself. Otherwise, they risk having their jobs altered.

"What is the purpose of public advocacy, a state career in advocacy? It exists so that this lawyer can tell the government official what he can and cannot do. If the prosecutor always has to find a way to make sure everything is right, it is very complicated for him to work," says the president of the Association of State Prosecutors of São Paulo (Apesp), Márcia Semer.

Legally, a prosecutor fills a position through a transfer competition and, according to the existing vacancies and their seniority in the career, they choose their workplace. They cannot be removed from this position except for extraordinary needs of the State, and only with justification and for a determined period.

In reality, says Márcia, today the political control of positions "happens in practice, although it cannot in law." If the PLC is approved, the practice will take on legal contours. As Elival da Silva Ramos intends to institute it, a prosecutor could be removed from office by a mere decision of the prosecutor, without justification.

Concentrated power

The second serious point is that PLC 25 allows the Attorney General to exempt the Attorney General's office from analyzing bids, contracts, and agreements (with municipalities, for example). "This provision weakens precisely the control over the legality of government actions. If our fundamental role is to help ensure that things are done according to the law, it does not seem reasonable that some matters should be removed from our review by the decision of a single person, the Attorney General," explains Márcia.

The obvious consequence of this would be a weakening of the prosecutors and less control on their part over the integrity of the state's business dealings. The constitutional function of the Attorney General's Office, which is both to advise the government and, above all, to control the internal legality of the administration and the actions of the government itself, is severely compromised.

In addition to these problems, the project is considered anachronistic. According to the prosecutors, it stipulates a very high number of appointed positions, thereby creating an extremely hierarchical structure and an "old" form of institutional management. "It is no longer appropriate that in a state career, such as that of a prosecutor, we have 500 bosses, junior bosses, and petty bosses. This excessively vertical organization of the career, with many positions of trust, weakens the independence of the prosecutors' work."

The intention of the project, however, seems to be precisely this. In the justification for the project, the Attorney General states that it fits within a context of "modernization of state administration," which "requires adapting the normative structure of the State Attorney General's Office to the challenges posed by the evolution of the activities that comprise its constitutional responsibilities."

But, according to the president of Apesp, "everything revolves more or less around this: it's a series of measures that attempt to reduce our ability to interfere so that the state acts more ethically, without so many problems of legality in its daily operations."