Brazilian Supreme Court Takes Down Bolsonaro's Secret Budget

In 2019, conservative lawmakers modified the "parliamentary amendments" so that public opinion could not track the destination of public resources.

On Monday, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the so-called 'Secret Budget' through which right-wing lawmakers have allocated public funds since President Jair Bolsonaro came to power in January 2019.

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The Court's decision emerged as a result of complaints according to which the Bolsonaro administration used this parliamentary procedure to attract the support of lawmakers by assigning budget items without respecting technical criteria.

The "Secret Budget" allowed the allocation of large budgetary resources in a way that was difficult to oversee, Supreme Court President Rosa Weber said.

During the trial, the Bolsonaro administration expressed its support for this mechanism, despite the fact that social organizations that defend transparency in governance had stated that the secret budget favored corruption.

�� Corrupção no RJ:
Governador reeleito do RJ Claudio Castro está sendo investigado por corrupção. Antes que Bolsonaro diga que não conhece, eis aí a foto dos amigos pic.twitter.com/OvvyTa8KcC

— Notícias paralelas (@GabrielKustow) December 13, 2022

The tweet reads, "Corruption in Rio de Janeiro: Claudio Castro, the re-elected governor, is under investigation for corruption. Before Bolsonaro says he does not know him, here is the photo of these two friends."

While budget preparation is mainly a responsibility of the Executive Power, a part of federal public resources has remained reserved for "parliamentary amendments", which are raised by lawmakers in a discretionary manner.

In 2019, conservative lawmakers modified the way these items were distributed so that citizens could not track the benefited parliamentarians or the destination of the money.

Since then, Brazilian journalists have been investigating parliamentary amendments in which they found evidence of overpricing and "phantom" purchases.