Quarantine Breach Could Lead to Arrest, Moro and Mandetta Decide

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Ministers of Justice, Sérgio Moro, and of Health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, released an inter-ministerial ordinance yesterday with rulings on society’s mandatory compliance with the measures announced by the government to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the decisions, they establish that patients who fail to comply with quarantine or isolation rules may be arrested.

According to Daniel Gerber, an attorney with a master’s degree in criminal sciences from PUC in Rio Grande do Sul, the measure decreed yesterday is legal.

The main articles of the ordinance consider this year’s Law 13.979, which rules on measures to fight the Covid-19. In article 3, the government determines that it may implement measures such as isolation, quarantine, and compulsory examinations and treatments, among others.

“Failure to comply with the measures provided for in Article 3 of Law No. 13,979 of 2020 will result in civil, administrative and criminal liability of offenders,” says the ordinance.

The noncompliance, according to the Ministries, involves two articles of Brazil’s Penal Code, Decree-Law 2,848: articles 268 and 330. The former deals with violations of health measures, and the latter with disobedience.

Article 268 – Infringement of a public authority order, aimed at preventing the introduction or spread of contagious disease. Penalty – imprisonment, from one month to one year, and fine.

Art. 330 – Disobeying the legal order of a civil servant. Penalty – detention, from fifteen days to six months, and fine.

The note released by the two Ministries states that if the government begins to order the compulsory isolation of patients – which is not yet the case – there must be a medical recommendation and the measure must be reported beforehand. Managers of the health system may request assistance from the police force in case of non-compliance with the rules.

“In the exercise of administrative police, the police authority may direct offenders to their homes or to the hospital for compliance with the established measures,” the text of the ordinance reads.

In the case of detention of suspected patients who refuse to undergo tests, the ordinance recommends that they be kept “in an establishment or cell separate from other prisoners”.

Criminal attorney Daniel Gerber says “the police never needed judicial authorization to act and to arrest. “It’s enough that the person is in gross violation.”

As a result, he considers that the measure decreed by Moro and Mandetta is legal. “If I have rules and someone violates those rules, the violation is considered blatant. Consequently, the police authority it is clearly authorized, not only to act but to order the arrest of such a citizen.”

Official cases of coronavirus in Brazil:

Source: UOL