O instituto da imunidade parlamentar no Brasil: análise do caráter absoluto e possibilidade de mitigação para responsabilização por crimes comuns

Abstract

The present research has as scope the study of the parliamentary immunities, emphasizing its absolute character and the possibility of its mitigation for the accountability of the parliamentarians due to the abuses used by them to the prerogative. Initially, it brought up various meanings of the term immunity, then start on to its concept, pointing the definition of important Constitutional Law’s authors. In this standard, the paper goes through a historical explanation of the immunities’ institute, from its onset, being the most remote in Rome and Greece, or the most recent in thirteenth-century England, until get to its consolidation in the end of the eighteenth century, showing also how the prerogative worked in France. Afterwards, its species were defined, inherited from England, the material immunity - derived from the freedom of speech - and the formal – resulted from the freedom from arrest -, highlighting its main characteristics. Next, Immunities were studied through the many Brazilian constitutions, since the Imperial Letter of 1824 to the present Magna Carta, bringing the changes promoted by the Constitutional Amendment number 35 of 2001. Lastly, was studied the innovative and anomalous approach of the 1988’s Constitution to the Municipality, aiming, with that, justify the reason that the Councilor was treated differently from the other representatives of the Legislative Branch, bringing to the surface the behavior of these parliamentarians in relation to the prerogatives granted to them, which can be skewed, due to the recognition of their absolute character by the Brazilian Supreme Court, when uttered in Congress. To do so, were used the exploratory research that will provide the analysis of each point, in order to reach the final objective and the understanding of the theme approached.