Herzog family urges international court to convict Brazil state

Family members of journalist Vladimir Herzog urged the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hold the Brazilian state accountable for the impunity in the case involving his murder by agents in the military dictatorship. Herzog's relatives also call for a revision of the Amnesty Law, passed in 1979, in a bid to have perpetrators identified and punished. The hearing was held Wednesday (May 24) at the court headquarters, in Costa Rica.

Clarice Herzog, the victim's widow and chairwoman of the Vladimir Herzog Institute, said she hopes the court orders the Brazilian state to put an end to the impunity and provide clarifications for Herzog's family regarding the circumstances in which he was killed. “Society has the right to know what happened. The relatives bereaved have never had anything [by way of a compensation]. I filed a suit, then other ones came along, and there was never an answer. They ignore everything and we're left behind in the past,” she said before the court.

Federal Prosecutor Sérgio Suiama spoke before the court as an expert and stressed the need for reopening investigations and a criminal case targeting perpetrators or participants.

Case shelved

In defense of Herzog's family, Federal Prosecutor Marlon Weichert mentioned he requested a criminal investigation into the case at federal level in 2008. The motion, subsequently shelved, was lodged because it was considered that the São Paulo court decision on the case in 1992 would not make a future reopening impossible. “The attempt at an investigation was aborted too soon, and the state court authorities were utterly incompetent to conduct both the investigation and a criminal case that could arise,” Weirchert said.

In the view of Alberto Zacharias Toron, lawyer for the Brazilian state, “it matters little that the São Paulo state court was incompetent.” He argues that the Supreme Court already dealt with cases prior to 2008, adding that no further appeals should be filed, even when the judge or the court are deemed incompetent.

“By 1992, the shackles [from the period of dictatorship] no longer existed. The Court of Justice came to the decision that the Amnesty Law should apply, and that's what happened—by means of an independent court,” Toron said.

In Toron's opinion, the Inter-American Court has no jurisdiction over the Herzog case. He described the Amnesty Law as a major achievement by Brazilian society. “It is the fruit of a political moment that paved the way in Brazilian history for the country's re-democratization, regardless of whether we like the fact that the torturers had been benefited by it. It was part of the political pact established at the time.

In a note on the case, the Office of the Attorney-General said that “since Brazil recognized the Court's jurisdiction in the case only for what happened after December 10, 1998, the facts under deliberation by the International Court are restricted to this time frame.”

Amnesty

According to an interpretation reached by the Supreme Court in 2010, the Amnesty Law covers all crimes committed during the period of military rule—1964 through 1985—both by the opposition and by the state agents responsible for crimes such as torture, disappearances, and the summary execution of dissidents.

Weichert referred to the decision as the biggest obstacle in the promotion of justice in Brazil in connection with the crimes committed by military agents during the dictatorship period, and criticized the position adopted by the Brazilian government regarding the issue. During the trial, both Weichert and Suiama mentioned the need for the Inter-American Court to reiterate its position concerning the interpretation of Brazil's Amnesty Law.

The Herzog case

Vladimir Herzog, director of a news program on TV Cultura in São Paulo, was tortured and killed by the military after being arrested and taked to the Department of Information Operations - Center for Internal Defense Operations (DOI-CODI) facilities, in October 1975. He left his wife Clarice and his children Ivo and André, then nine and seven years old, respectively.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Vladimir Herzog—originally reported as suicide in an official note bearing a forged picture—were debunked.

In October 1978, after a motion filed in 1976 with the Federal Court of São Paulo, Clarice Herzog was granted the conviction of the Brazilian state for Herzog's arbitrary arrest, torture, and death. In the sentence, the judge in charge of the case declared that Herzog died after severe acts of torture.

In 2013, as part of the work of the National Truth Commission (CNV), Herzog's family was able to rectify the death certificate, which now says that the journalist's death was due to “bruises and ill-treatment endured during questioning at [DOI-CODI] the facilities.” The final report, drafted by the commission, says that “there are no doubts regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of Vladimir Herzog, illegally arrested, tortured and murdered by agents of the state in DOI-CODI facilities of the Second Army, in São Paulo, in October 2975.”

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira