Preliminary report on Demosthenes has a deadline.
The case's rapporteur, Humberto Costa (PT-PE), guarantees May 10th as the date for the presentation of the document; however, the senator from Goiás, who was expelled from the DEM party, has not yet presented his defense; the deadline is the 25th of this month.
Raphael Coutinho _PE247 – The vote on the preliminary report in the disciplinary process regarding the breach of parliamentary decorum by Senator Demóstenes Torres (independent) from Goiás state is scheduled to take place. At least, that is the wish of the rapporteur, Humberto Costa (PT-PE), who hopes the situation will be resolved by the beginning of May. "The idea is that, between May 8th and 10th, this decision will already be made," he assessed.
Senator Demóstenes Torres has until April 25th to present his defense. From then on, Humberto will have to prepare the preliminary report. “This preliminary report, to justify opening the disciplinary process, must contain evidence that there has been a breach of decorum. If the initiation of a disciplinary process is proposed and accepted by the Ethics Council, we will begin a process that has no defined end date,” explained the Workers' Party member.
Humberto Costa met, on Tuesday (17), with the Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Ricardo Lewandowski, to discuss the transfer of information to the Ethics Council regarding data obtained from the Federal Police investigations during Operations Las Vegas and Monte Carlo. The minister is the rapporteur of the criminal inquiry that investigates, under judicial secrecy, the involvement of businessman Carlos Augusto Ramos, Carlinhos Cachoeira, in illegal activities. This data may be useful in the process of alleged breach of parliamentary decorum by Senator Demóstenes Torres.
“We went there to show the minister that there are precedents for the transfer of information from cases that were under judicial secrecy and could be shared with the Senate, including as grounds for a request to remove a senator from office,” argued Humberto. In addition to the rapporteur himself, the meeting on Tuesday evening was attended by the president of the Ethics Council, Antonio Carlos Valadares (PSB-SE), the Senate's inspector general, Vital do Rêgo (PMDB-PB), and Senator Wellington Dias (PT-PI), a full member of the Council.
According to Humberto, the requested material is limited to what is solely relevant to the Ethics Committee. He believes this information is important for preparing a well-founded report.
“My feeling, and that of the other senators who were present, was one of optimism. I believe there will be goodwill in granting us this data if we make the request properly, restricting ourselves to the information that is truly of interest to the Council for the process of breach of parliamentary decorum,” the rapporteur emphasized. “For example, the results of the wiretaps, which are actually public knowledge, but formally cannot be known to the Senate,” he added.