However, when it comes to public accounts, the question arises: do these accounts also enjoy the confidentiality granted to the accounts of individuals? When observing a specific case1, in light of art. 37 of the Federal Constitution, in a habeas corpus trial, the Superior Court of Justice – STJ understood that public accounts, “by virtue of the principles of publicity and morality, do not, in general, have the right to intimacy and privacy. Consequently, they are not covered by banking secrecy”.
The decision issued by the Superior Court of Justice recognizes the public interest as the primary purpose of the Public Administration. The law is one of the main sources of the public interest, since it is an instrument of collective will email database australia that reaches the level of regulation. If the public interest is an objective of the community seen as a whole, several other principles arise from this postulate, such as transparency and publicity.
The defense, however, appealed the decision to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and argued that “the publicity inherent to public accounts was not at issue, but rather the violation of the fundamental right to privacy of the human person. It claims that the criminal action brought against the appellants was based on evidence obtained through improper means, since judicial authorization is essential to breaking banking secrecy.” In this case, the breaking of secrecy was achieved through an official letter sent by the Public Prosecutor's Office to a manager of a financial institution.
The second panel of the STF then began to discuss the issue recently, under the reporting of Minister Dias Toffoli. In his vote, Toffoli denied the appeal because he understood that “deciding otherwise would imply emptying the very purpose of the principle of publicity, which is to allow control over the actions of the public administrator and the use of public funds.”
The rapporteur also highlighted that the Public Prosecutor's Office's requests for records of financial transactions relating to funds transferred from a current account held by the city government include, by extension, access to records of successive banking transactions, even if carried out by private individuals. The measure aims to guarantee access to the real destination of these public funds in cases where there is evidence of criminal offenses involving public funds.
The topic will still be discussed in more depth, since Minister Teori Zavascki, a member of the second group, requested to view the case files.