Rosa Weber denies injunction against private donations.

247 - Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Rosa Weber denied on Wednesday, the 17th, in a preliminary ruling, a request to suspend the vote on the proposal that would include private financing of election campaigns in the Constitution. 

In her decision, Rosa Weber states that she did not address the merits of private campaign financing, noting that there is a case under discussion in the Supreme Court on the subject. The minister also argues that the proposal approved by the deputies was not the same as another that had been rejected, since the first one was broader.

"Sometimes a single issue is enough to provoke the initial rejection of the whole. An option contrary to democracy, as demonstrated by precedent, would be embodied in suppressing the possibility of analyzing the smaller parts by removing the problematic point, and not the other way around," the minister said in the decision. 

Rosa Weber also believes that if the Supreme Court were to interfere in the legislative debate, there would be an "usurpation" of powers. "I have acted cautiously in this Court. Advancing judicial analysis on the organization of the exercise of Legislative Power could represent usurpation," she said.

The Supreme Court is discussing a lawsuit filed by congressmen from six parties – PT, PSB, PC do B, PPS, PSOL, and PROS – against the approval of the proposed constitutional amendment. The congressmen argue that there was a violation of due legislative process because a constitutional amendment on a subject rejected in the same year cannot be voted on. Another argument is that the proposal attempts to change an entrenched clause in the Constitution (which cannot be modified), and that the approved text does not impose a donation limit, which would be "a mere attempt to immunize political abuse and economic power."

Last week, the Speaker of the House, Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), personally spoke with Justice Rosa Weber, the rapporteur for the writ of mandamus. He delivered information about the voting process for the amendment. 

Cunha classified the writ of mandamus as "false" and "litigation in bad faith." "It's one thing to debate and contest what is being done. It's another to present a document in which you are falsifying the truth; that document is a false document," stated the Speaker of the House shortly before heading to the Supreme Court last week for a hearing with the minister.