‎Brazil News

The president of the STF, Minister Luiz Fux. Credit: Nelson Jr./SCO/STF

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously approved this Wednesday (10/8), in a virtual administrative session, a proposal to readjust 18% of the salaries of magistrates and judicial servers. If the claim is confirmed by Congress, the 11 members of the STF will receive about R$46,366 monthly – currently, they receive R$39,293.32.

 

According to a formal note published on the Court’s website, “the proposals submitted for analysis by the collegiate were presented to the Supreme Court at higher levels, but were reduced – both to 18% in installments between 2023 and 2024 – to be included in the Power Budget. Judiciary, to be voted on in the National Congress”.

 

With this, the Court's budget for 2023 will be R$ 850 million. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate are expected to vote on the proposal.

 

The salary recomposition in question would be made in four successive installments of 4.5%, non-cumulative, divided as follows: the first in April 2023; the second in August of the same year; the third in January 2024; the last one in July 2024. The salaries of STF ministers are, constitutionally, benchmarks for the entire Judiciary.

 

The file of the proposal approved at this Wednesday's administrative session contains the following:

 

“This is the case for a proposal for recomposition of remuneration presented by the Association of Brazilian Magistrates – AMB, a representative body of the Judiciary at the national level. In its request, that Association presents the reasons why the need for the STF, in the use of its constitutional attributions, to promote the intended recomposition is justified.

 

AMB mentions the changes in the spending ceiling established by Constitutional Amendment No. 95/2016, resulting from Constitutional Amendments 113 and 114. It clarifies that such changes opened space in the federal spending ceiling, including the bodies of the Judiciary, and that this results the opportunity to give a minimum of effectiveness and concreteness to the constitutional imperative established in article 37, item X, according to which an annual general review of the remuneration and subsidies of public agents is ensured.

 

It also adds that several careers have been contemplated with salary readjustments in recent years and that the magistrates have not even had a partial recomposition of inflationary losses, which is not in line with the maxim of isonomy that should govern the relationship between the Public Administration and its agents, just as it does not respect one of the elementary guarantees of the Judiciary's autonomy, the irreducibility of subsidy.

 

Finally, it highlights the historical inflationary losses based on the National Broad Consumer Price Index, of almost 40%”.

 

LUIZ ORLANDO CARNEIRO – Reporter and columnist.