The Supreme Court of Brazil has postponed a key judgment on the demarcation of indigenous lands sine die, one of the judges asking for more time to analyze the case on Thursday.

In this judgment, the 11 magistrates of the high court must rule on the validity of the "temporal framework" granting rights to the natives only on the lands which they occupied the year of the promulgation of the Constitution in 1988.

A decision postponed for several weeks

On Wednesday, there was a vote for and a vote against when Judge Alexandre de Moraes called for the postponement, considering that certain aspects needed to be analyzed in more depth. The judgment will have to be resumed at a later date, without any fixed deadline, which could postpone the final decision of the Supreme Court by several weeks, or even several months. Last week, the first judge to rule, rapporteur Edson Fachin, voted against the "time frame", saying it would prevent the natives "from fully exercising their right" to occupy their ancestral lands.

On Wednesday, Judge Kassio Nunes Marques, recently appointed to the Supreme Court by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, instead voted in favor.

According to him, the absence of this “time frame” would risk giving “the possibility of indefinitely increasing the extent” of indigenous lands.

A thesis defended by the powerful lobby of agribusiness but contrary to the Constitution, for the indigenous communities.

"Not a centimeter more"

According to them, many ancestral lands were not occupied by the natives in 1988 because they had been evicted over the centuries, especially during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). "Many indigenous communities are waiting for the demarcation of their territories, this postponement of the judgment gives more time to the invaders to illegally exploit these lands", lamented in a statement Eloy Terena, lawyer of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) .

Many indigenous lands are subject to intrusions by miners and traffickers in timber, with catastrophic environmental consequences, such as pollution of rivers and deforestation.

Shortly after his election, Jair Bolsonaro had announced that he would not cede "a centimeter more" to the natives whose territories cover 13% of the country.

If the Supreme Court of Brazil were to validate the notion of "time frame", indigenous peoples could be evicted from their lands if they fail to prove that they occupied them in 1988.

Planet

World Conservation Congress: "We are facing the trial of what men have produced", loose an indigenous leader

Politics

Marseille: indigenous peoples ask the World Congress for Nature to protect the Amazon

  • Judgement

  • Jair Bolsonaro

  • Amazonia

  • Brazil

  • World

  • Native