Are Class Councils Coming to an End? Guedes Sends PEC to Congress to Try to Eliminate Mandatory Requirement Once and for All

There Are 29 Professional Councils Today in the Country, with the Main Ones Being the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), and the Federal Council of Engineering and Agronomy (Confea)

Paulo Guedes, Minister of Economy, sent a proposal for a constitutional amendment (PEC) to Congress that eliminates, in some cases, the requirement for workers to register with professional councils. The PEC also changes the legal status of these entities, which cease to be public and become private. PEC 108/2019 began processing on Tuesday, July 9.

“The law will not impose limits on the exercise of professional activities or the requirement for registration with a professional council unless the absence of regulation poses a concrete risk of harm to life, health, safety, or social order,” says the PEC text.

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The document does not specify which entities will be affected by the changes. There are 29 professional councils today in the country, with the main ones being the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), and the Federal Council of Engineering and Agronomy (Confea).”

“The proposal also provides that professionals registered with the councils are subject to the rules of labor legislation. In the justification for the PEC, Guedes states that the purpose of the law is to eliminate “obstacles to the economic and social development of the country” and the “risks of bureaucratization”.

Among the main points of the document is the change in the legal nature of professional councils, which cease to be autarchies belonging to public administration and become private non-profit entities.

Currently, professional councils are treated by doctrine and jurisprudence as autarchies, although they have an organization more similar to that of private entities. According to the government, recent jurisprudence has provided conflicting understandings about the legal nature of councils, and the law comes to fill a “constitutional gap”.

Criticism of the Changes in Professional Councils

The president of the Architecture and Urbanism Council of Brazil (CAU-BR), Luciano Guimarães, criticized the new legal nature of the councils, as it will prevent the entities from supervising and imposing penalties on their members.”

“According to Guimarães, the law should guarantee the councils “effective powers of supervision, guidance, and discipline of the respective profession, including the power to fine in cases of violations of professional legislation”.

On the other hand, the rule that removes the obligation for registration with professional councils is, for the president of CAU, an advancement: “The PEC does not propose to eliminate the registration with professional councils; it aims to restrict this registration to cases where the absence of regulation poses a risk of concrete harm to life, health, safety, or social order”. According to Guimarães, the lack of obligation “prevents the proliferation of regulated professions, imposing market reservations where collective interests such as life, health, safety, or social order are not present.”

In a statement, the OAB informed that it is conducting a technical and legal analysis of the PEC. Confea said it would not comment. The Federal Council of Nursing and the Federal Council of Veterinary Medicine did not position themselves.”

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