Commission makes effort to vote on Civil Code

The commission of jurists in charge of reviewing and updating the Civil Code will carry out, in the Senate, next week, between April 1st and 5th, a concentrated effort to deliberate on the final report containing proposed changes to more than a thousand articles, addressing topics of difficult consensus, such as family, animal and property rights.

One of the points of controversy, for example, concerns the right of the unborn child – the unborn fetus. One of the reports presented in February mentions that rights before birth are protected “for the purposes of this Civil Code”. This expression, which appears to restrict the scope of the rights of the unborn child, generated controversy in the conservative camp and was used to spread false news, especially in Catholic and right-wing circles. Professor and jurist Flávio Tartuce, one of the rapporteurs for the reform of the Civil Code, emphasizes that the project does not address abortion and highlights that the commission’s work is technical, not motivated by ideology.

Organizations such as the Union of Catholic Jurists spoke out against the initiative to review the Civil Code, arguing that it is not just an “update”, but rather a reformulation of the country’s vision of society, person and family. In response, Tartuce denies the proposal for a “New Civil Code”, emphasizing that it is an update and that the commission’s objective is to reduce bureaucracy in people’s lives, with no intention of promoting controversies or revolutions in customs.

civil Code

The creation of the Commission of Jurists to review the Civil Code was an initiative of the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, who defended the proposal as an effort to fill gaps in the current code. The group, made up of 36 specialized jurists, has until April 12 to present a bill to the Senate with new proposals for the Civil Code.

The Civil Code, with more than 2 thousand articles, regulates various aspects of life in society, including topics such as marriages, contracts, inheritance and company rights. The reform proposal includes significant changes, such as the introduction of rights provided for in international treaties, the definition of the end of civil personality with brain death and the consideration of animals as “objects of rights”. Furthermore, it is suggested to change the title of the family law book to “of families”, the creation of the legal figure of “cohabitant”, the exclusion of the spouse or cohabitant as a necessary heir and the insertion of a book dedicated to law digital.

(With Agência Brasil).