Jango’s widow will receive R$500,000 due to persecution during the dictatorship, decides TRF-4

Due to having suffered political persecution during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), Maria Thereza Goulart, widow of former president João Goulart will receive R$500,000 in compensation for moral damages from the Union. The decision is from the 3rd Panel of the Regional Court Federal District of the 4th Region with perpetuation since November.

Since the beginning of the year, the 4th Federal Court of Porto Alegre ordered the Union to pay R$79,200 in compensation to former First Lady Maria Thereza, who is now 88 years old. The sentence was passed in January by judge Bruno Risch Fagundes de Oliveira, recognizing that Maria Thereza was persecuted and exiled with her children during the dictatorship.

Maria Thereza Goulart, widow of former president João Goulart will receive 500 thousand in compensation for moral damages from the Union.

“Thus, as stated by the court of origin, the evidence brought to the case effectively demonstrates that, from the exceptional acts resulting from the military regime launched in April 1964, psychological damage certainly occurred that affected not only the deposed former president, but also the his family group, including his wife, the author of this action, starting with the escape from national territory and continuing with constant monitoring, control and overt surveillance by the Brazilian State, in cooperation with other countries, for more than a decade and a half, while the family was exiled in Uruguay and Argentina”, pointed out Cândido Alfredo Silva Leal Junior, federal judge, in recognition of the period that the Goulart family was outside the country from 1964 to 1979.

Generally, in cases such as political persecution, the compensation decided by the federal judge is R$100,000, but due to the severity, the case’s rapporteur readjusted the amount. The Union tried to appeal, without success, on the grounds that Maria Thereza had not been arrested, tortured or attacked by the Brazilian State at the time. The action has been filed by Maria Thereza since 2021.

“She also suffered as a woman, she suffered as a mother, being exposed in front of her children. She suffered as a wife, because she was being arrested and led away because she was the wife of a President of the Republic. She was made, as a woman, almost a ‘thing’, being forced to be naked, in an unjustified way, with the intention precisely of being coerced, embarrassed, reduced as a person, as a mother, as a wife, as a woman”, explained Leal Junior .

As a result, the rapporteur voted to increase the compensation to R$500,000, with default interest to be counted from April 1, 1964, the date of the military coup, when Maria Thereza left Granja do Torto, one of the official residences, to he went into exile in Uruguay until 1973 and then in Argentina with his two children when they were still children.