"From everything I have seen, the police in Genoa never did anything other than defend themselves... Only a fool goes against them, and in Genoa many fools have received their due." Andrew Apel, Editor of Agbionews

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Judges question the release of GE soya
This is a translation by Greenpeace Brazil of the full article posted earlier to the ngin list.
26/07/2001 18:11:19 ESPECIAL - GloboNews.com  - 'Juízes questionam liberação de soja transgênica', by Maria Lúcia Delgado, BRASÍLIA, 26  (Globonews.com)

The Brazilian Association of Federal Judges has decided to alert  the Federal Government before the Minister of Agriculture,  Pratini de Moraes, goes ahead to allow the commercial planting of  GE soya next week.    "If he does this, the minister will certainly be breaking the law  and be subject to face legal penalties. It is a crime", said Federal  Judge Flavio Dino, the president of the Association.  

Because of the decision at the Federal Justice of Brazil, the  production and commercial use of these GM crops can only  be  authorised after EIA-RIMA, environmental impact study, have  been carried out. Besides this, measures have been taken by the  Federal Justice to ensure producers of such modified crops must  observe biosafety rules, and labelling rules, informing  consumers  if products contain genetically modified organisms.  

"We are alerting the government to avoid a confrontational  situation between the Federal Justice and the Ministry. We hope  that the General Advocacy of the State and the Ministry of the  Environment will evaluate this situation better", said Flávio Dino.  

The commercialisation of modified crops was questioned in the  Justice by the Public Security  in 1999. The Government and the  multinational Monsanto, that developed modified soya, questioned  this decision. It was confirmed by TRF-DF11 TRF-DF is the second instance of Justice. They confirmed the decision to not allow RR soya before the environemtal impact study.. Now it depends on   the Superior Tribunal for Justice to judge this matter.    

Following this judgement, any public or private agent who breaks  this decision of TRF-DF (produce and commercialise GMOs) will  be subject to a fine of R$ 10,000 per day, and besides this will face other legal penalties.  

Online news in portuguese available at:  http://globonews.globo.com/GloboNews/article/0,6993,A75987- 10,00.html