The Public Ministry of Santa Catarina (MP-SC) spoke out in favor of the Free University program, created by the Jorginho Mello (PL) government, and against the direct action of unconstitutionality filed by private universities, members of Ampesc, at the Court of Justice ( TJ-SC). The position signed by attorney Gladys Afonso is the first official one by the MP-SC on the project that buys places at community universities in Santa Catarina. Ampesc asks that three essential articles of the law approved at Alesc and sanctioned by Jorginho be declared illegal.
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Ampesc makes a new request to suspend Universidade Gratuita, but TJ maintains the program
The prosecutor concludes the petition filed this Wednesday (8), in this way: “In view of the above, for the reasons set out above, it is concluded, preliminarily, that the Plaintiff is recognized as illegitimate in proposing this Direct Action of Unconstitutionality in the absence of thematic relevance and the failure to prove its geographic scope, and the lack of procedural interest, due to the lack of challenge to the entire normative complex said to be unconstitutional. If you don’t understand this e. Areópago, declares that the request is unfounded, so that articles 1, 2 and 27, all of Complementary Law no. 831, of July 31, 2023, of the State of Santa Catarina, for the reasons set out in this initial petition”.
In short, Gladys says that: “In this scenario, for all the points discussed here, the unconstitutionalities raised by the Author Association do not deserve to prosper”. In the order, the prosecutor details each of the requests made by Ampesc. The Association’s request is for three fundamental articles of the Free University law to be considered unconstitutional.
The first two are precisely articles 1 and 2 of the legislation. They institute the program and talk about the distribution of State resources to university institutions. For the prosecutor, however, “there is no talk of unconstitutionality of articles 1 and 2 due to subversion of the rule set out in article 170 (formerly Uniedu) of the Constitution of Santa Catarina, since, despite there being, in fact, a discrepancy between the wording of the constitutional text and that provided for in the state’s complementary law, this is a means adopted by the State to better control the Free University Program. This, in itself, does not constitute unconstitutionality.”
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For Gladys, Ampesc “seeks economic and participatory interests in the program”. It further continues: “However, the constitutional role belongs to the student, and not the Institution, which is why the limitation by the infra-constitutional legislator to university municipal foundations and authorities and non-profit social assistance entities is reasonable at this point. ”.
Finally, when dealing with article 27 of the law, also questioned by the association and which allows the governor to make budget adjustments for the beginning of the project, the MP-SC’s position is also contrary: “with regard to the formal aspects of the Program Universidade Gratuita, it was argued that article 56, § 1, of the State Constitution was violated, since article 27 of the state legislation under examination consists of a prohibited legislative delegation for budgetary adequacy”.
Based on the MP’s position, now the rapporteur of the case, judge Ricardo Fontes, will cast his vote to be taken to the Special Body of the TJ-SC, which should only occur in 2024, due to the short calendar of sessions of the body until the end of 2023.
