Senate says scope of charges against Rousseff must not be broadened

The head of the Senate's Special Committee on Impeachment, Raimundo Lira, said on Friday (Apr. 29) that the scope of the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff in the Senate cannot be broadened to include new charges, such as implication in corruption in connection with the Petrobras graft scandal and its tentacles, investigated by Operation Car Wash.

However, this issue will be discussed further by senators in a later stage of the proceedings in the Senate, according to Lira. The possibility of encompassing charges not examined by the Chamber of Deputies when deliberating on the impeachment case came into play after Janaína Paschoal, one of the lawyers who filed for the ouster suit, called on senators during a hearing on Thursday (Apr. 28) to consider the whole set of allegations against Rousseff, rather than just those over the government's accounting maneuvers known as “fiscal backpedaling”.

The opposition's Senator Cássio Cunha Lima endorsed the call for widening the scope of the case. But for Senator Lira, the initial proceedings in the Senate should examine only the charges accepted by the lower house.

“For this first stage [of the Senate proceedings], I have decided, as a matter of order, that the proceedings should be limited to the charges upheld by the Chamber of Deputies, namely what became known in Brazil as 'fiscal backpedaling',” said the head of the Senate committee.

Lira met with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (STF), Ricardo Lewandowski, who suggested he upheld the Court's rulings on the controversy. On April 15, the Supreme Court ruled that the impeachment case to be considered by Senate should concern the accounting maneuvers and additional budget appropriations only.

Lira requested a hearing with Lewandowski to discuss guidelines for the proceedings of the Senate committee. In case the impeachment charges are accepted, the Chief Justice will preside over the case.

Translated by Mayra Borges