Document of the week! Military Justice and national security during the dictatorship from the North American perspective

Check out the full document in our collection: Air Telegram from John W. Tuthill to the State Department on the Performance of the Military Judiciary System

Military Justice and National Security During the Dictatorship from the North American Perspective

One of the most impressive things about the American documentation of the Brazilian military dictatorship is the informational capacity that the United States Embassy and Consulates in Brazil had about the authoritarian regime. A clear example of this is the set of in-depth reports that diplomatic personnel produced on different aspects of the social and institutional daily life of the military dictatorship.

In the NACE CNV-Brazil document of the week, we will bring, over the next month, some notable examples of in-depth reports produced by US diplomatic personnel in Brazil focusing on the Brazilian dictatorship. This week, the document deals with the Military Justice in Brazil. 

Within the scope of Military Justice, one of the fundamental milestones is the Institutional Act No. 1, of April 9, 1964, which required the investigation of Brazilian citizens for crimes of subversion. As a result, numerous cases would be opened Military Police Inquiries (IPM) about different Brazilian institutions and personalities in the weeks immediately following the 1964 coup, in order to assess their responsibility for crimes of subversion and also for crimes of corruption. 

The IPMs, however, were not “revolutionary” courts, but merely investigative bodies. Once the investigation was completed, it would be forwarded to civilian or military courts, depending on the type of crime committed. Since the legislation that allowed civilians to be tried by military courts was quite restricted, cases that were improperly sent to military courts ended up being rejected because they were contrary to the provisions of the law. 

This would then become one of the demands of the regime's radicals: to allow civilians to be prosecuted more broadly by military courts. This would end up being allowed by Institutional Act No. 2 and then ratified by 1967 Constitution and by National Security Act of 1967, all created by the government White Castle. From then on it had become possible to try civilians who had committed crimes against “national security”, and not just against “external national security”, as was the case with the old National Security Act of 1953. 

Since “national security” is a very broad concept, and one that has been left deliberately vague, what we saw were a variety of situations, from armed subversion to street protests, from intellectual and journalistic demonstrations to suspicions of corruption, being classified under the “national security” box and, as a result, being legally – but not legitimately – sent to trial in military courts. The regime was taking a decisive step towards the securitization of society and the disrespect of the basic civil rights of Brazilian citizens.

Prof. Dr. Felipe Loureiro,

Deputy coordinator of NACE CNV-Brazil,

Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo