Constitution of the United States of Brazil (1946)/Title 4/Chapter 2
Chapter II
Individual Rights and Guaranties
Art. 141—The Constitution assures Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country the inviolability of the rights respecting life, liberty, individual securty, and property in the following terms:
§ 1. All are equal before the law.
§ 2. No one may be obliged to do or refrain from doing anything except by virtue of the law.
§ 3. The law shall not prejudice any vested right, any juridical act accomplished, or an adjudged matter.
§ 4. The law shall not exclude any injury to individual rights from consideration by the judicial power.
§ 5. The manifestation of thought is free and shall not be dependent upon censorship, except as regards public spectacles and amusements, and each of these shall be responsible in the cases and in the form which the law may establish, for any abuses they may commit. Anonymity is not permitted. The right of reply is assured. The publication of books and periodicals shall not be dependent upon license from the public power. However, propaganda for war, or violent processes to overthrow the political and social order or prejudices of race or of class shall not be tolerated.
§ 6. The secrecy of correspondence is inviolable.
§ 7. The liberty of conscience and creed is inviolable, and the free exercise of religious sects is assured, as long as they shall not be contrary to public order or good morals. Religious associations shall acquire juridical personality in the form of the civil law.
§ 8. No one shall be deprived of any of his rights by reason of religious, philosophic or political conviction, unless he shall invoke it in order to exempt himself from any obligation, duty or service required by the law of Brazilians in general, or shall refuse those which the same law may establish as substitutes for those duties in order to meet a conscientious excuse.
§ 9. Without constraint of the ones favored, religious ministration shall be tendered by a Brazilian (art. 129, Nos. I and II), to the armed forces, and likewise, when solicited by interested parties or their legal representatives, in establishments of collective internment.
§ 10. Cemeteries shall have secular character and shall be administered by the municipal authority. All religious confessions shall be permitted to practise their rites therein. Religious associations may maintain private cemeteries, in accord with the law.
§ 11. All may meet, without arms, without any intervention on the part of the police except to assure public order. With this object in view, the police may designate the place for the meeting, with the understanding that proceeding in this manner, they (the Police) do not frustrate the meeting or render it impossible.
§ 12. Freedom of association for legitimate purposes is assured. No association may be compulsorily dissolved except by virtue of judicial sentence.
§ 13. The organization, registration, or functioning of any political party or association whose program or action may be contrary to the democratic regime based upon plurality of parties and guaranty of the fundamental rights of men, is prohibited.
§ 14. The practice of any profession shall be free, with observance of such conditions of capacity as the law may establish.
§ 15. The home is the inviolable refuge of the individual. No one may enter therein at night, without the consent of the dweller, except to go to the assistance of the victims of a crime or a disaster, nor during the day, except in the cases and in the manner established by law.
§ 16. The right of property is guaranteed except for the case of expropriation for public necessity or utility, or social interest, with prior and just indemnization in money. In case of imminent peril, such as war or domestic commotion, the competent authorities may use private property, if the public good so requires, with the assurance of the right to indemnization at a later date.
§ 17. Industrial inventions belong to their authors, to whom the law shall guarantee temporary privilege, or, if diffusion should be in the collective interest, it shall grant a just reward.
§ 18. Ownership of industrial and commercial marks is assured, as well as exclusivity in the use of a trade name.
§ 19. To the authors of literary, artistic or scientific works shall belong the exclusive right to reproduce them. The heirs of authors shall enjoy this right for such time as the law may determine.
§ 20. No one shall be imprisoned except in the act of committing a crime or, by written order issued by a competent authority, in the cases specified by law.
§ 21. No one shall be taken to prison or detained therein if he furnishes the bond permitted by law.
§ 22. The imprisonment or detention of any person shall be immediately communicated to the competent judge, who if it should not be legal, shall give release and, in the cases provided for by law, shall hold the restraining authority responsible.
§ 23. "Habeas corpus" shall be granted whenever anyone shall suffer or be threatened with suffering violence or restraint in his freedom of movement, by illegality or abuse of power. In disciplinary transgressions, "habeas corpus" shall not apply.
§ 24. To protect clear and certain rights not covered by "habeas corpus," a writ of security shall be granted, whatever may be the authority responsible for the illegality or abuse of power.
§ 25. The accused are assured of full defense with all the means and resources essential thereto, commencing with the note of guilt, which, signed by the competent authority, with the names of the accuser and of the witnesses, shall be delivered to the prisoner within 24 hours. The criminal instruction shall be contradictory (contestable).
§ 26. There shall be no privileged court nor exceptional judges and tribunals.
§ 27. No one shall be prosecuted or sentenced except by the competent authority and as provided by a prior law.
§ 28. The institution of the jury is maintained, with such organization as the law may give to it, provided that the number of its members shall be always odd and the secrecy of its voting shall be guaranteed, as shall be the fullness of the defense of the accused and the sovereignity of the verdicts. The judgment of crimes against life shall obligatorily be of its jurisdiction.
§ 29. Penal law shall determine the individualization of the punishment and shall only be retroactive when it shall so benefit the accused.
§ 30. No penalty shall extend beyond the person of the delinquent.
§ 31. There shall be no penalty of death, of banishment, of confiscation, nor of perpetual character. Exception is made, with respect to the death penalty, of the provisions of military law in time of war with a foreign country. The law shall provide for the sequestration and loss of property, in the case of illicit enrichment, through influence or through abuse of public office or function, or of employment in an autarchic entity.
§ 32. There shall be no civil imprisonment for debt, fines or costs, except in the case of an unfaithful custodian and of failure to fulfill one's obligation of maintenance, as provided by law.
§ 33. Extradition of a foreign subject shall not be granted for political crimes or crimes of opinion nor of a Brazilian, in any case.
§ 34. No tax shall be demanded or increased except as the law shall establish, no tax shall be collected without previous budgetary authorization in each fiscal year, exception made, however, of the customs tariff and of taxes levied by reason of war.
§ 35. The public power shall grant judicial assistance to the needy in such manner as the law may establish.
§ 36. The law shall assure:
I—the rapid despatch of documents in transit through the public departments;
II—the communication to the interested parties of the decisions given and the information to which the latter refer;
III—the issuance of certificates or authenticated copies, solicited for the defense of individual rights;
IV—the issuance of certificates or authenticated copies, solicited for the elucidation of citizens concerning public affairs, with restriction, in respect of the last named, of the cases in which the public interest impose secrecy.
§ 37. The right is assured to any person whomsoever to make representation against abuses by authorities and to take steps to hold them responsible, by petition addressed to the public powers.
§ 38. Any citizen shall be a legitimate party to plead the annulment or declaration of nullity of acts injurious to the patrimony of the Union, of the States, or of the Municipalities, and likewise of autarchic entities and those of mixed economy.
Art. 142—In time of peace any person may enter the national territory with his goods and remain therein or depart therefrom, so long as the precepts of the law are respected.
Art. 143—The Federal Government may expel from the national territory any foreigner injurious to the public order, unless his spouse be a Brazilian and have a Brazilian child (art. 129, nos. I and II), dependent upon the paternal economy.
Art. 144—The specification of the rights and guaranties expressed in this Constitution does not exclude other rights and guaranties resulting from the regime and from the principles which it adopts.