Brazil: no statute of limitations for the crime of slave labor

The Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, filed this week, at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), a lawsuit to ensure that the crime of labor analogous to slavery does not prescribe. In the injunction, he asks the Court to forbid courts and judges to declare the statute of limitations.

Aras argues that the statute of limitations for crimes is a constitutional guarantee of the investigated, but it is not absolute. For Aras, there are cases in which the statute of limitations does not apply, such as the crime of racism.

The attorney general also defended at the STF the priority in the trial of actions that deal with the fight against slave labor. And that actions dealing with the matter be judged by the Court in the first half of this year.

The prosecutor argued that 2.5 thousand workers in conditions analogous to slavery were rescued by labor inspectors last year.

Expropriation of land

Earlier this month, the Public Defender of the Union also filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court to guarantee the expropriation of land and the confiscation of assets of companies caught using workers in conditions analogous to slavery. The agency argues that the measure is provided for in Article 243 of the Constitution, but has not yet been regulated.

The lawsuit requests the immediate use of Law 8.257 of 1991 to expropriate rural and urban properties that use workers in this condition.