Experts underline that the impasse is not the increase in the number of deputies, but of the distribution of new chairs, which maintain compared to the population criterion provided for in the Constitution; The issue can stop at the Supreme Court and lead to the declaration of unconstitutionality of the rule approved by the Chamber
Approved under the justification of the correction of the sub-representation of the population in Chamber of DeputiesTHE project which increases the number of parliamentarians from 513 to 531 has the potential to be questioned in the Supreme Federal Court (STF). Jurists and political scientists evaluate that although the increase in the presidents is a prerogative of the congress, the way in which they were distributed do not respect the criterion of proportionality between the population and representation of the States, provided for in the constitution and text of the law approved by the Chamber, which moves the road to the path of the supreme on the constitutionality of the standard.
The analysis of the case, however, is not limited to the legal field: the revision of a Congress decision would bring political costs and further intensified the tension between the powers.
The project was presented as a response to the decision of the StF, which in 2023 declared the omission of the congress to review the composition of the state benches based on the data of the 2022 census. The Court therefore established that the representation of the States in the Chamber, proportionate to the population, as required by the Constitution. The last update was made in 1994.
According to the constitutional domain, no state can have less than 8 deputies and the most populous, Saint Paul, must have a maximum of 70. Within these limits, the number of chairs should be regulated according to the population of each unit of the federation. It was based on this principle that the Supreme Court determined the redistribution of the 513 existing chairs, not the increase in the total. To satisfy this criterion, it would be necessary to remove the chairs from the states that have lost the weight of the population and transmit them to those who grew up.
The problem, explains the FGV political scientist Cláudio coutoIt is that this has not been done. To avoid the political wear of the removal of chairs from some states, the congress has chosen to increase the total number of deputies. The articulation, led by the President of the Commission for Constitution and Justice, Hugo Motta (Republicans-PB), ensured that all benches were maintained. The new chairs have been distributed only to the states that have grown up, without moving those who have lost representativeness. In practice, the congress preserved political interests and used the census only as a justification to expand the benches already inflated without correcting the imbalances.
The result is the maintenance of historical imbalances in the representation. The super-deploying states, such as Roraima, continue with eight deputies, even focusing only 0.3% of the population. Already San Paolo, with 22% of the inhabitants of the country, continues with only 13.7% of the chairs. Rio de Janeiro, in turn, even if he has lost a participation relating to the population, has maintained his 46 chairs, when he should have lost four, according to the proportional formula required by law. In the meantime, states like Pará and Ceará, who should have been more beneficial, have received fabrics, insufficient additions to rebalance the representation.
This deviation from the proportionality criterion, says Couto, is what makes space for questions in the judiciary. In the same line, the teacher Luiz Gomes EstevesFrom Insper, he underlines that the problem is in the way the project was conducted, ignoring the central guidelines of the Supreme Court, which provided for the correction of the state representation based on the size of their populations. “The choice to expand the total deputies, without reviewing the logic of distribution, can open the margin so that the law is contested in the Supreme itself,” he says. On the other hand, the jurist underlines that the increase in the number of deputies is a legitimate prerogative of the congress and, alone, should not be contested.
In the political field, the possibility of judgment is also in the radar. One of the parties that study supreme against the measure is PSOL. The Federal deputy Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ) states that, preventing states from losing chairs even when they lose the population, the project crystallizes a federative imbalance.
For the parliamentarian, it is another attempt to self -produce the mandates, “cool of the reality of the country”. “At a time when Brazil deals with series challenges, attention should be on the quality of the representation, not in its quantity,” he says.
Lara MesquitaFgv’s politician attracts attention to the concrete execution of the proposal. Although the project brings a formula for future redistributions, it has not been applied now, just how proportionality had to be corrected. The distribution of the 18 new chairs has occurred before the rule is in force, without any public technical justification. “The problem is that, in doing this, it has maintained a distribution that does not respect the proportionality between population and representation,” he says.
Even the states that have gained seats are not now contemplated on the basis of a clear technical calculation, but by a political choice oriented to avoid losses. For the researcher, this conduction compromises the central objective of the Stf decision, which was precisely to correct the distortion between population and number of state chairs.
If this thesis advances, the Supreme can be caused to declare the unconstitutional rule, requesting the chamber to deliberate again on the subject. In a scenario of institutional normality, this type of interference would be unlikely, assesses the professor of political sciences Leandro allow. However, the current climate of tension between the powers can change this calculation. “Given the recent history of wear between Congress and Supreme, this could be another letter in the institutional game, a Stf reaction to attempts to limit its powers,” he says.
For consent, more than a dispute on numbers and formulas, the impasse will open the difficulty of the congress in reviewing the historical distortions of the representation and places the supreme against another crossroads between the technical application of the Constitution and the political costs of an institutional intervention. “Since we do not live normal times, today marked by clashes between the powers, you cannot predict. There may be a turning point,” he concludes.
Source: Terra
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