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Brazil's attorney general issues injunction to halt Rousseff impeachment

Xinhua, May 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

In a last-minute move to halt the Senate voting which may suspend President Dilma Rousseff from office, Brazil's attorney general filed on Tuesday an injunction trying to cancel the impeachment process.

Under the Brazilian law, such an injunction must be analyzed by one of the 11 Supreme Court judges, randomly appointed in order to avoid bias.

In this case, the judge to analyze the injunction will be Teori Zavascki, who, last week, ruled that House speaker Eduardo Cunha should be suspended from office for trying to coerce other congressmen and hinder investigations against him.

Zavascki's office said he will analyze the case overnight and announce his decision on Wednesday.

In the injunction, Attorney General Jose Eduardo Cardozo argues that there are vices in the process.

In the very beginning of the case, Cunha had repeatedly said that the impeachment requests filed in the House lacked legal basis, until the ruling Workers' Party declined to support him over a corruption case in the House Ethics Committee. Then he suddenly changed his mind and turned for an immediate impeachment process.

Cardozo said that Cunha clearly started the impeachment process in a vendetta after his attempt to blackmail the government failed, and that the partiality continued with the choice of Representative Jovair Arantes as the rapporteur of the process.

Cardozo accuses Arantes of preparing a biased report in favor of the impeachment in exchange for Cunha's support in the next election for House speaker.

According to the attorney general, the entire session must be cancelled for it was the result of abuse of power.

Earlier this week, the new interim House speaker, Waldir Maranhao, accepted an appeal made by Cardozo and decided to cancel the House voting, which decided for the start of the impeachment process.

However, the Senate insisted on proceeding with the vote. Under political pressure, Maranhao announced on Tuesday morning a decision to annul the cancellation, making the case more interwined and confusing. Endi