Brazil president appeals courtroom order on wearing mask
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro appealed a court ruling about Friday that will require him to wear a nose and mouth mask in public through the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, calling it "unnecessary."
The attorney general's office, which represents the federal government in legal issues, said the ruling was redundant since face masks already are mandatory in Brasilia.
"This interference from the courts is unnecessary," a spokeswoman for the legal professional general's office told AFP.
However, this is a regulation the far-right president provides repeatedly flouted, as judge Renato Borelli pointed out in his ruling in Monday.
"The president has a constitutional obligation to follow the laws in force in the united states," the judge wrote, ordering Bolsonaro to obey the regulation or face a 2,000-legitimate (US$365) fine.
The case was brought by a attorney who said the president ought to be held to take into account his "irresponsible behaviour."
Since the ruling, Bolsonaro has worn a mask at all public appearances.
Masks have been mandatory in public found in Brasilia since April to curb the pass on of the virus.
Bolsonaro regularly breaks the social distancing measures set up in the capital, supplying handshakes and hugs in rallies, hosting barbecues, striking the shooting spectrum and venturing out for hotdogs, generally without a mask.
The president, who has famously compared the virus to a "little flu," has railed against the measures state and native authorities are taking to fight it, arguing that organization closures and stay-at-house measures are needlessly wrecking the economy.
Brazil gets the second-highest Covid-19 death toll on the globe, after the USA, at 55,000.
So far, Bolsonaro has never been fined for failing woefully to wear a mask.
But his former education minister Abraham Weintraub was fined 2,000 reals the other day for attending a pro-Bolsonaro rally in Brasilia without one. - AFP
