Finally, the expected assessment by the Supreme Federal Court on the merits of matter 924, which deals with the conduct described as “gambling”, will be analyzed on April 7, 2021. The judgment addresses the typical nature of the conduct to establish and explore gambling, dismissed by the judgment under appeal based on the precepts of free enterprise and fundamental freedoms. The topic was considered to have general repercussion in November 2016. Rapporteur: Minister Luiz Fux.
According to Laerte Luis Gschwenter, lawyer for the case and who will make the oral argument, the vote "can end years of legal setback - remnants of the dictatorship and the 'customs police' - decriminalizing conduct and pacifying the matter in the country".
“According to the consolidated and unanimous understanding of the Special Criminal Courts of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, the conduct described as games of chance has been atypical for several years. If Decree Law 3688/41 was not 'formally' revoked as of the Federal Constitution of 1988, it is a fact that, under the constitutional and legal prism, it is absolutely buried, since the referred rule directly affronts the rights and guarantees ensured in Magna Carta, which can no longer be tolerated,” analyzes Gschwenter.
On October 10, 2016, the STF recognized the existence of a general repercussion of the constitutional issue, by means of an order by the then reporting minister and now President of the Court, Luiz Fux, deciding that: “under the terms of article 1.035, § 1, of the Code de Civil Procedure / 2015, combined with article 323 of the RISTF, I manifest myself by the existence of general repercussion of the constitutional issue raised.”
Gschwenter says that, given the general repercussion, “it is technically necessary that thousands of lawsuits, the object of which is about gambling, bingos, slots and jogo do bicho - if so decided by the Supreme Court - will be effectively extinct and filed throughout the national territory, meaning procedural economics and, above all, reestablishing the dictates prescribed in the current Constitutional Charter, namely, Article 1, IV; article 5, XLI and 170 of the CF, allowing companies to legally collect the due taxes and act, if necessary sub judice, until it is decided on the regulation, without falling into any criminal offense and undue police harassment.”
Among the themes guided by the STF are the right to be forgotten, the right to reply in journalistic newspapers, the sale of alcoholic beverages on highways and stadiums, the regulation of gambling, restrictions resulting from intellectual property and quotas for national productions in audiovisual ventures.
In addition, judgments related to children's advertising and the integration of the São Francisco River were also scheduled. Fux, however, made it clear that cases related to the COVID-19 epidemic will have priority. A trial that is expected to cause controversy next year is what will decide how the testimony of the President of the Republic will take place in the context of Inquiry 4831, scheduled for February.
Source: GMB
