Transparência Brasil considers it essential to include civilsociety organizations in the commission set up by the president of the Supreme Court, Edson Fachin, to draw up proposals to control super salaries. The group, set up on Monday (2.Mar.2026), has only members from the Judiciary, the National Congress, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Court of Auditors and the Federal Public Defender’s Office.
“A group restricted to participants from the careers that concentrate super-salaries in the civil service will obviously not be able to come up with effective solutions for restoring the authority of the constitutional ceiling. It is essential that the commission be plural, with counterpoints from organizations and specialists who work on this issue,” says Juliana Sakai, executive director of Transparência Brasil.
The commission is a consequence of the decisions of Justices Flávio Dino and Gilmar Mendes in Reclamação 88319 and Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade 6606, respectively, which suspended penduricalhos paid without legal support – in the case of the Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, without provision in federal law.
On 02.Mar.2026, ten organizations from the Civil Society Coalition to Combat Super Salaries in the Public Service – including TB – sent a letter to the president of the STF, Edson Fachin, asking for civil society to be included in the group and requesting a hearing to discuss measures to tackle payments above the constitutional ceiling in thecivil service.
In the letter, the organizations highlight studies that point to systematic non-compliance with the constitutional ceiling, such as those by Transparência Brasil and República.org, which found that retroactive payments have been consolidated as one of the main mechanisms for increasing these remunerations. Between January 2018 and April 2025, the Judiciary paid out at least R$10.3 billion in benefits classified as retroactive, amounts that are not subject to the constitutional ceiling. In 2024 alone, payments totaled around R$3 billion, reaching seven out of ten magistrates.
The coalition also pointed out to the president of the STF that Bill 2.721/2021, which is often presented as a positive way of tackling super salaries, could actually extend exceptions to the salary cap. A study by TB and República.org, already mentioned in the letter, concluded that the proposal aggravates super salaries in the Judiciary by unduly establishing benefits that cost R$7 billion in 2024 as compensation.
In the midst of the debate in the Supreme Court on rules to limit indemnity funds that increase the remuneration of civil servants, the participation and contributions of specialist entities in the area, as well as other representatives of civil society and academia, are fundamental to improving the measures aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the constitutional ceiling provided for in article 37 of the Federal Constitution.
