Background
Adarcy Klipel da Silva received social-security payments under provisional judicial relief that was later revoked. In an earlier ruling, the Superior Tribunal de Justiça applied its binding precedent in Theme 692 and held that an insured person must repay amounts received under subsequently revoked provisional relief, regardless of the payments’ alimentary nature or the recipient’s good faith.
After the Second Panel denied an internal appeal, Silva filed a motion for clarification. She argued that the panel had failed to address constitutional provisions concerning human dignity, legal certainty, access to justice, acquired rights and legitimate expectations, due process, and social-security protection. She also sought express treatment of the payments’ alimentary nature and her asserted objective good faith so that she could preserve those constitutional issues for a possible extraordinary appeal to the Supremo Tribunal Federal.
The Court’s Holding
The Second Panel unanimously rejected the motion. It held that Article 1,022 of Brazil’s Code of Civil Procedure limits clarification motions to correcting an omission, contradiction, obscurity, or material error; such motions cannot be used to reopen the merits merely because a party disagrees with the result.
The panel found no qualifying defect because the earlier decision had expressly explained that Theme 692 permits recovery of benefits paid under provisional relief later revoked, irrespective of their alimentary nature and the insured person’s good faith. It further held that clarification motions are not an appropriate means of obtaining prequestioning of constitutional provisions for an extraordinary appeal, because constitutional review belongs to the Supremo Tribunal Federal.
Key Takeaways
- A clarification motion under Article 1,022 addresses formal defects in a judgment and ordinarily cannot be used to relitigate its merits.
- Under STJ Theme 692, social-security amounts received pursuant to provisional judicial relief later revoked are repayable regardless of their alimentary nature or the recipient’s good faith.
- The STJ will not use a clarification motion solely to prequestion constitutional provisions for a future extraordinary appeal to the Supremo Tribunal Federal.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces both the repayment rule governing benefits received under revoked provisional relief and the narrow procedural function of clarification motions. A party’s constitutional objections do not establish an omission when the STJ has already resolved the dispositive issues under its precedent.
For practitioners, the ruling underscores the distinction between correcting a defect in an STJ judgment and seeking constitutional review: disagreement with the STJ’s application of Theme 692 cannot be repackaged as an omission merely to prepare an extraordinary appeal.