"Brazil’s top court shelves Indigenous land case, no new date set", 15 September 2021

...Brazil’s Supreme Court...suspended a high-profile land rights case that Indigenous people in the South American nation say is vital for their survival, with no new date for when it will revisit the matter.

The top court is weighing whether a state government applied an overly narrow interpretation of Indigenous rights by only recognising tribal lands occupied by Indigenous communities at the time Brazil’s constitution was ratified in 1988.

Indigenous rights groups say the rule was unconstitutional because there was no time frame in the 1988 constitution, which guaranteed the right to ancestral lands...

As things stand, two members of the 11-member court have ruled so far, with one justice in favour of a cut-off date for land claims, while another has voted to end the timeframe.

The government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro draws support from the agricultural sector, which broadly defends the timeframe. It argues the time framework gave legal security to farmers, many of whom have lived for decades on land once inhabited by Indigenous people...

Critics also say a defeat in court for the Indigenous people would set a precedent for the rollback of rights that Bolsonaro has sought with the backing of powerful farming interests.

Lawyers for the Indigenous people, who today number some 850,000 in Brazil, say the constitution that set in stone their rights to ancestral lands makes no mention of a time framework...