Chamber approves sweeping improbity law changes uniting left and right

In mid-June, Brazil's Chamber of Deputies voted to reshape the nation's improbity law—the statute that governs how public officials are held accountable for misconduct. The vote was lopsided: 408 in favor, 67 against, one abstention. What made it remarkable was not the margin but the coalition. Petistas and Bolsonaristas, opposition and government, the center-right bloc known as the Centrão—they all voted together. The bill now moves to the Senate.

Under the new text, drafted by Carlos Zarattini, a PT deputy from São Paulo, a public official—whether a street-level bureaucrat or a governor—can only be prosecuted for improbity if prosecutors can prove the person acted with deliberate intent to harm the public treasury and to enrich themselves illegally. The old law cast a wider net. It could snare negligence, recklessness, even honest mistakes made in good faith.

Chamber President Arthur Lira opened the debate with a forceful speech. He called the existing law "antiquated and outdated," a straitjacket that paralyzes competent administrators and discourages innovation. He went further, attacking São Paulo's attorney general, Mário Sarrubbo, whom he had recently received in his office. Sarrubbo, Lira said, had asked him not to bring the improbity bill to a vote. Lira then announced he would soon schedule a separate measure to cut judicial salaries—a pointed reminder of who holds the gavel.

The speed of the vote troubled legal experts. There had been no broad public consultation, no extended committee review. Lira brought the bill straight to the floor. Yet some analysts argued the overhaul was overdue. They contended that the current law, by threatening officials with ruin even when they acted in good faith, had chilled emergency action and experimentation in public management. If a mayor or governor wanted to try something new and it went wrong, the law could destroy them—even if no crime occurred.

Opposition came from voices like Kim Kataguiri, a DEM deputy from São Paulo, who voted no. He was struck by the unlikely alliance between left and right. The new law, he argued, gutted accountability. A governor could distribute an unproven medicine to the public and face no penalty, so long as no one could prove he meant to steal. Negligence—the failure to act with basic care—had vanished from the text. That was dangerous.

Hildo Rocha, an MDB deputy from Maranhão, saw it differently. He had watched good people in public service get dragged through courts, their reputations shattered, only to be cleared years later when investigations found no actual crime. The current law, he said, destroyed lives on suspicion alone. The new standard would protect them.

Roberto de Lucena, a Podemos deputy from São Paulo and the original author of the reform proposal, voted against the final bill. His idea, he said, had been mangled beyond recognition. The Chamber had taken his framework and twisted it into something he no longer recognized.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where it will face its own debate and vote. What happens there will determine whether Brazil's approach to policing its own government shifts fundamentally—whether the burden of proof rises so high that only the most brazen theft can be punished, or whether some middle ground emerges that protects good-faith actors without creating a license for recklessness.