STF will have to cancel Precedent 563 that established hierarchy for these payments. The matter was reported by Minister Carmen Lúcia.
The understanding of the minister, followed by the majority of the Court, with divergent votes of the ministers Gilmar Mendes and Dias Toffoli, is that there is no valid basis in the Constitution to accept in the Brazilian legal system an infra-constitutional rule that creates distinctions between the federated entities in the judicial collection of tax and non-tax credits.
"The establishment of a hierarchy in the judicial collection of public debt credits from the Union to the States and these to the Municipalities defies the federative pact and the constitutional norms that protect Brazilian federalism by implying that the Union would have greater prevalence and importance than the other federated entities" , stressed the minister.
The Brazilian legal culture, embraced in the constitutional systems previously in force in the country, was influenced by the centrifugal origin of federalism adopted as a form of State in Brazil, which made possible, in a historical period that had a long course, the contest of preference and prevalence of some on other federated entities, reported the minister, in her vote.
However, he pondered: "In the current constitutional order, this understanding was broken by the adoption of the federalism of cooperation and balance by the Constitution of the Republic of 1988, so the distinction, by law, of distinction between and hierarchy among the federated entities, outside the constitutional provision and without specification of a valid federative purpose".
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