STF and Statute of Limitations in Administrative Improbity: what are the limits of interim relief?

Fábio Medina Osório

Partner at Medina Osório Advogados. PhD in Administrative Law from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Master’s in Public Law from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Former Attorney General of Brazil. President of the International Institute for Studies of State Law (IIEDE).

Law No. 14,230 of 25 October 2021 marked a turning point in the discipline of administrative improbity. The reform of Law No. 8,429/1992 introduced major changes: the requirement of specific intent (dolo específico), the possibility of civil non-prosecution agreements, a redefinition of sanctioning hypotheses, and, perhaps most controversially, a new framework for limitation periods and the rules governing prescription during proceedings.

The reform quickly met resistance. The National Association of Members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (CONAMP) filed Direct Action of Unconstitutionality No. 7,236, with a request for interim relief, arguing that several of the new provisions clashed with constitutional principles — from administrative morality and proportionality to legal certainty and the institutional role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office itself.

The case gained prominence at the Federal Supreme Court (STF). On 27 December 2022, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, acting as rapporteur, partially granted an injunction, ad referendum of the Plenary, suspending provisions related to limitation periods. That decision was followed, on 16 May 2024, by a complementary vote in plenary, and later, on 23 September 2025, by a new ex officio injunction, motivated by concerns that thousands of improbity cases might imminently become time-barred.

At the centre of the debate was Article 2 of Law No. 14,230/2021, which altered several provisions of the Administrative Improbity Law. Article 23, § 5 drew particular attention: it established that, once the limitation period was interrupted, the clock would resume at half the original duration — in other words, four years instead of eight. CONAMP maintained that this was incompatible with the reality of Brazilian litigation, where complex cases routinely take longer than a single judicial instance to conclude, rendering accountability largely ineffective.

The Court’s handling of interim relief in ADI 7,236 can be traced through three key moments:

• • December 2022: Moraes granted partial relief, suspending only the provisions on prescription, while rejecting other requests. He relied on the combination of fumus boni iuris and periculum in mora, identifying real risks in the immediate application of the new deadlines.
  • May 2024: In plenary, the rapporteur proposed declaring the partial nullity of Article 23, § 5, striking out the reduction clause. This would preserve the eight-year period after interruption. The judgment, however, was interrupted by requests for review from Justices Gilmar Mendes and Edson Fachin.
  • September 2025: With reports that over eight thousand improbity suits could become time-barred within weeks, Moraes once again intervened, ex officio, to suspend the rule. He stressed that the shortened deadline conflicted with the very logic of improbity proceedings, which demand extensive evidence and adversarial debate.

The decisions rested on several pillars: the constitutional protection of probity under Article 37 of the Constitution, the real and imminent risk of mass prescription, the mismatch between shortened deadlines and the complexity of improbity cases, and the Court’s own precedents, such as ARE 843.989-RG, which excluded limitation periods for damages to the Treasury caused by intentional acts.

Although the concern was justified, the injunction may be criticised for its sweeping effect. By suspending § 5 outright since 2022, the Court neutralised the provision before any concrete case of prescription had arisen. A more cautious approach — for instance, modulating effects or applying the rule only where actual expiry was at stake — could have preserved at least part of the legislative intent to accelerate proceedings.

That said, the subsequent interventions in 2024 and 2025 show sensitivity to judicial realities. State prosecutors presented data demonstrating that the halved deadlines would extinguish thousands of actions in progress. Against this backdrop, the STF’s role as guardian of constitutional effectiveness came to the fore, adjusting the legal text in the name of republican principles and administrative morality.

Still, the injunction raises a deeper institutional issue. When relief is granted in such a way that it prevents a provision from ever producing effects, the Plenary’s competence is effectively bypassed. Interim relief should not pre-empt the very substance of constitutional review. In this case, it might have sufficed to act once actual expiry had occurred, leaving the broader question for the Plenary’s judgment.

In sum, ADI 7,236 reveals how the Court gradually dismantled the new limitation rules introduced by Law No. 14,230/2021, with particular focus on Article 23, § 5. The main concern was the risk of prescription without inertia by the claimant — a situation at odds with the traditional rationale of Brazilian prescription law. Even so, intermediate solutions could have been crafted, such as linking the reduction of deadlines to proof of procedural inactivity. By suspending the provision wholesale, the rapporteur’s monocratic decisions opened the door to criticism of premature judicial intervention, since the very condition for its application — the passage of time — had not yet materialised.

Ultimately, the case illustrates a familiar tension in constitutional adjudication: how to protect administrative probity and ensure accountability without undermining legislative autonomy or disrupting the separation of powers. The challenge remains to ensure that interim measures safeguard constitutional principles without usurping the Plenary’s prerogative to settle the matter definitively.