‎Brazil News

 

The Attorney General's Office (PGR) proposed to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) this Friday (24/11) an Allegation of Non-compliance with Fundamental Precepts (ADPF) with a request for a precautionary measure against a municipal law in São José dos Campos , in the interior of São Paulo, which prohibits demonstrations that encourage “the misuse of drugs”.

 

This is Law 10,774, of 2023, which established “the prohibition of the use of public spaces and public roads to carry out acts that encourage the misuse of drugs”.

 

Municipal legislation specifies that these incentive acts would be marches, events, fairs and meetings that support the possession for personal use and consumption of illicit substances and narcotics that can cause dependence of any nature.

 

 

In the request, the PGR argues that the municipal law of São José dos Campos violates the fundamental precepts of the Constitution that guarantee both freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

 

“There is no doubt that the rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression of thought are fundamental precepts of the constitutional order. Any act of public authorities, normative or not, that points in a direction different from the normative field of these precepts will contradict some of the most relevant pillars of the rule of law”, reads the initial petition AJCONST/PGR No. 1250644/2023.

 

In the document, the Attorney General's Office cites a speech by Minister Celso de Mello in the ADPF 187 trial, for which he was rapporteur. At the time, the minister stated that “the defense, in public spaces, of the legalization of drugs, far from meaning a criminal offense, supposedly characterizing the crime of apologizing for a criminal fact, represents, in reality, the legitimate practice of the right to free expression of thought, provided by the exercise of the right to assembly”.

 

The PGR also asked the Supreme Court to definitively establish a thesis establishing that any prohibitions on the holding of public acts and events related to the defense of the legalization and decriminalization of drugs are an offense against the fundamental precepts of freedom of assembly and free expression of thought. and others.