Requests to annul urgency vote of Brazil’s gaming bill should not move forward

Application 23/2022 is based on articles 100 and 105 of the Internal Regulations of the Chamber of Deputies. For the author of the request for annulment of the vote, the Request for Urgency was revived and “surprisingly” included in the agenda of December 16, 2021. According to the deputy, the vote “failed to analyze the various projects added, including the definitive ban on gambling.”

"Going into the merits of the matter, which proves to be harmful to the Brazilian population, it is clear that the vote on the simple request of 6 years ago and on another founded Legislature, is illegal and anti-regime," adds Barros in his application. According to him, there was no requirement to unarchive Bill 442/91.

The advice of Federal Deputy Bacelar (Pode-BA), coordinator of the Working Group that revised Bill 442/91, prepared a report on requirements 23 and 24 and pointed out the following premises:

• In fact, the applicant did not consider that Bill 442/91 fits the provision of item I of art. 105 of the Rules of Procedure, which is why it was not archived at the end of the previous legislatures and, therefore, is being processed in accordance with the regimental rule.
   
• Request 24/2022, on the other hand, is based on articles 153 and 155 of the Chamber's Internal Regulations, “because it is not a relevant and urgent matter for the country,” considered the author. According to Barros, an urgent request should address issues of “relevant and urgent national interest”.
   
• The deputy's claim that Bill 442/1991 would not apply for an Urgency Request is equally unfounded, since the notion of urgency and relevance translates a subjective aspect and can only be determined by the majority decision, as occurred in the processing of the urgency request.
   
• Furthermore, art. 153, IV of the Rules of Procedure, establishes the possibility of presenting an RQU to consider a matter in the same session, which undermines all the arguments in a prohibitive sense presented in the justification of application 24/2022.

“For these reasons, this Opinion believes in the perfect processing of Bill 442/1991, and in the impossibility of approving Orders 23/2022 and 24/2022," evaluates the team of deputy Bacelar.

It will be up to the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) to analyze the requirements and make the decision whether or not to maintain the urgency for discussion and voting on the report prepared by Federal Deputy Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE) within the scope of the Work that revised Bill 442/91.

Given the importance of the issue to leverage the Brazilian economy, with the generation of billions of reais in taxes and hundreds of thousands of jobs, it is to be expected that Arthur Lira will not comply with the requirements for annulment of the vote. On several occasions, the President of the Chamber highlighted the importance of immediately discussing the issue, whose support is represented by the creation of the Working Group that analyzed Bill 442/91.

“This issue of legalizing gambling in Brazil has been debated for a long time. Those who defend legalization will explain their reasons and those who are against will give theirs,” Lira said in an interview after the urgency request was voted in December.

For him, “legalization has to be done in the open, with a lot of debate. As we discuss, we’ll see whoever gambling remains illegal as it is today. Everyone knows that there are casinos, bingo games, slot machines, virtual bets debited from the credit card and paid abroad and the jogo do bicho. But does it have to exist in hiding to continue without generating formal jobs in Brazil and without paying more or less R$20 to R$25 billion in taxes?”, he asked.

Thus, when rejecting requests for annulment of urgency, the President of the House will adopt precisely what he defends: the immediate discussion of the legalization of the gaming sector in Brazil.

Source: GMB