NGO files public civil action against act of Ibama president

The Institute of Collective Law (IDC) filed a Public Civil Action (ACP), requesting an injunction, requesting the immediate suspension of the effects of a measure by the president of Ibama, Eduardo Fortunato Bim, which has the potential to cause the prescription of more than 42 thousand cases drawn up between 2008 and 2019. They are around 60% of the body's total cases in the period.

The measure makes it impossible to collect billions of reais in fines for crimes such as deforestation, animal trafficking, illegal logging and invasion of conservation units. The action, filed in the Federal Court of Amazonas, was distributed to the 7th Federal Environmental and Agrarian Court of SJAM.

In March 2022, the president of Ibama signed an order that resulted in the annulment of all subpoenas issued by notice to present final allegations and changed an understanding of the Specialized Federal Attorney's Office with Ibama on the acts capable of interrupting the intercurrent prescription within the scope of environmental sanctioning processes. The notice procedure (virtually) had been carried out since 2008, established in the old wording of article 122 of Federal Decree No. 6.514/2008, amended only in 2019, by Federal Decree No. 9.760/2019.

With the annulments, which have a retroactive effect, Fortunato Bim made it possible for the processes to be prescribed intercurrently - due to the inertia of the public agent - even without the de facto stoppage of these investigations. Therefore, ACP requests the immediate suspension of the effects of the order, in addition to the annulment of all Ibama acts that have declared intercurrent prescription based on the understandings of the order.

In the action, the lawyers claim that the act of the president of Ibama contravenes legal provisions and principles of the Federal Constitution. And its serious consequences include granting safe conduct and encouraging crimes, drastically reducing the punitive, pedagogical and dissuasive capacity of the Brazilian environmental agency. The ACP text also highlights the fact that Fortunato's decision was monocratic, removing the application of a presidential decree (6.514/2008) and leading to the “unbelievable waste of all the work of IBAMA employees over all these years, of gigantic budgetary impact and incalculable environmental loss”.

Lawyers Tatiana Bastos (president of IDC) and Bruno Campos signed the initial petition.