By four votes to one, the ministers of the Second Panel of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered the reinstatement of the former governor. Gross Mato Moisés Feltrin, who served for 33 days in 1991. The Court’s decision was taken this week.
The judge also ordered retroactive payment of installments that Feltrin had not received since November 2018. At that time, the Mato Grosso government had already withheld those payments in accordance with the Court’s own decision.
The current salary of the governor of Mato Grosso, Mauro Mendes (União Brasil) is R$30,800. Feltrin, however, will receive R$33,000.
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At that time he was sitting in a chair Paiaguás Palacethe state Executive headquarters, Feltrin, who was then in the PFL, served as a state deputy and led the Legislative Assembly of Mato Grosso.
Feltrin took over the government after Governor Carlos Bezerra resigned. At the same time, Vice President Edison Freitas de Oliveira resigned due to health problems. After a brief stint in power, Feltrin handed over his position to newly elected Governor Jayme Campos.
Lifetime pension provision
From 1999 onwards, Feltrin began receiving a lifetime pension. However, in 2018, the STF cut off this privilege to the former Chief Executive in the context of a lawsuit filed by Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) 15 years earlier, in 2003.
When contacting the STF, the OAB specifically cited the case of Feltrin. 21 years ago, the politician received R$12,500 a month for being governor of Mato Grosso for 33 days.
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In the decision that now reaffirms Feltrin’s lifetime retirement, ministers Dias Toffoli, André Mendonça and Kassio Nunes Marques followed in the dean’s shoes. Gilmar Mendes. He highlighted the “factual oddities” of the case – even though the STF itself has declared the pension payments to former governors unconstitutional.
Minister Edson Fachin, the rapporteur, was defeated, arguing that it was impossible for the university to revisit decisions that had been taken in a plenary meeting.
STF dean defends return of allowances
Mendes stressed that, when he asked the STF to return his pension, Feltrin was 81 years old and had been receiving benefits suspended by the Mato Grosso government for more than 20 years.
“There is no moral crusade that justifies, in view of constitutional guarantees, the sudden suppression of benefits received in good faith for decades by elderly people, without conditions for reintegration into the labor market”, explained the Dean of the Supreme Court.
In the Minister of Finance’s assessment, the pension paid to the former governor is not an “odious privilege”. According to the Minister, it is “a food allowance received for years by someone who, trusting in the law and the administration, is no longer able to meet, due to old age, their needs in the labor market”.
Also read: “Judges without Judgment”, article by Augusto Nunes published in Revista Oeste Issue 230
Mendes, in this case, referred to other cases in which the STF ordered the restoration of former governors’ pension funds. Furthermore, he considered that, considering the constitutional guarantee of legal security and the principle of legitimate protection, it was no longer possible to review the benefits for Feltrin.
For the Dean of the Supreme Court, the fact that former governor Moisés Feltrin is elderly, has no possibility of reintegrating into the labor market and that he has received a pension for a long period justifies the maintenance of the monthly payment.
Also read: “Two-Faced Judges”, by Silvio Navarro
Magazine WestIndonesian: with information from State Agency
