Judge Gustavo Augusto Pires de Oliveira based the order blocking the singer’s passport on the “repeated frustration” of measures taken by the court to execute the conviction. He argued that Joelma was “hiding from the Judiciary while continuing to boast a high standard of living resulting from her fame.”
Joelma’s defense appealed to the TRT-6, in a habeas corpus, claiming that the first decision “violated the constitutional right to come and go, as well as to exercise one’s profession”. The appeal was accepted by judge Maria Clara Saboya Albuquerque Bernardino.
In an order signed on Thursday night, the judge highlighted that the seizure of a passport “requires an unequivocal demonstration of sufficient elements to justify it”. For Maria Clara, there is no such demonstration in Joelma’s case: “for example, ostentatious wealth or malicious action aimed at frustrating the execution to avoid paying the labor debt”.
“Otherwise, the aforementioned measure would, in fact, prove to be a mere punitive measure, which is devoid of adequacy, reasonableness and proportionality, in addition to achieving a fundamental right, embodied in the debtors’ freedom of movement”, he noted.
Maria Clara highlighted that the Labor Court’s attribution to determine the collection of a passport is “exceptional”. “The act does not represent a constriction of physical or intellectual assets capable of resolving ongoing labor claims as it does not have any economic character”, she explained.
Along these lines, the judge considered that there are no grounds for the order to restrict Joelma’s passport. “In the Labor Court, the seizure must always be effective, with impertinent ineffective acts of application analogous to the case of passport retention, which are not effective for execution”, she pointed out.
