SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Congress on Thursday overturned a veto by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so it can reinstate legislation that undoes protections of Indigenous peoples’ land rights. The decision sets a new battle between lawmakers and the country’s top court on the matter.
Both federal deputies and senators voted by a wide margin to support a bill that argues the date Brazil’s Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — is the deadline by which Indigenous peoples had to be physically occupying or fighting legally to reoccupy territory in order to claim land allotments.
In September, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided on a 9-2 vote that such a theory was unconstitutional. Brazilian lawmakers reacted by using a fast-track process to pass a bill that addressed that part of the original legislation, and it will be valid until the court examines the issue again.
The override of Lula’s veto was a victory for congressional supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who joined several members of Lula’s coalition in voting to reverse the president’s action -- and his allies in agribusiness.
