G1: In ES, lawyer says government is to blame for widespread corruption
Interview with G1/Bom Dia ES, on the occasion of a lecture on corporate liability under the Anti-Corruption Law, criticizing widespread corruption.
Interview text
Translated from the original.
On a visit to Espírito Santo to give a lecture on “The liability of companies under the new anti-corruption law”, lawyer and doctor of Administrative Law Fábio Medina spoke, in an interview with Bom Dia ES this Thursday (27) (WATCH HERE) , about the strong presence of corrupt practices in the country’s political institutions. According to him, although the activity is inherent to human beings, its spread makes evident the responsibility of the government. Medina is the fourth and last participant in the series on political and economic prospects for next year.
After starting his career in the Public Prosecution Service, the lawyer pointed to the advance of the oversight institutions, but said that the rise in corruption complaints, in his view, is due to the growth of the practice itself. “Corruption has increased a great deal in recent years, under the governments that have successively been exercising power, and therefore it becomes more visible. The institutions have matured not through the government’s own initiative, but through an arrangement of society and even through the effects of globalization itself”, he said.
For Medina, the central problem of corrupt practice is its political use, which ‘contaminates’ institutions and produces negative effects for society. “That, obviously, causes the spread of this pathology through the institutions. When corruption becomes so widespread, there is obviously governmental and political responsibility for it. On one side, leniency in dealing with the issue. On the other, the encouragement of financing for projects of power,” he analyzed. Regarding the recent scandal of bribe payments at Petrobras, the lawyer highlighted the punishment of important figures in the large companies. “An avalanche of actions against all these characters should come. We are talking, first, about the criminal sphere, which may lead to arrests, even definitive ones. In addition, there is the possibility of an avalanche of administrative improbity actions, with asset freezes and possible suspension of ongoing contracts. We are dealing with unpredictable scenarios that Brazil may even be paralyzed by because of this corruption agenda,” he stated.
Asked about the possibility of recovering the funds lost in the so-called ‘petrolão’, Medina believes the losses are permanent. “If a good part could be recovered, that would be healthy. If the State could respond with arrests, with a hardening of the formulas that reduce the sense of impunity in the country, that would be best. When there is corruption at such high levels, the whole of society comes to absorb the idea that nothing matters, that the rule of law is a fiction”, said the lawyer.
– From G1 ES, with information from TV Gazeta.