Paulo Nassar: “Lobbying needs to overcome its bad narrative”

The legal news website JOTA interviewed Paulo Nassar, Aberje’s director president and full professor at University of Sao Paulo, about a project to make the work of lobbyists official in Brazil. The Bill 1.202/07 aims to regulate the lobbying activity in the country. “Lobbying needs to overcome its bad narrative with a new narrative, based on ethics and transparency.

“The regulation of the lobby in Brazil needs to be seen within a framework: the need to change the paradigm in which, historically, public-private relations take place in our country. It is a type of collusion relationship in which participants, conversations, agendas, goals, exchanges, environments, among other aspects, are being threatened mainly by the Judiciary.

“Therefore, any project aiming to lobby regulation must be aligned with another paradigm, one in which the relationships between society and those who make laws and runs public management are marked by competence, legality and the legitimacy of a broad social scope. If this new context is not respected, the project becomes another factoid, another protocol of relationship, without transforming power. The project is at the risk of turning into a card factory that gives access to an old-style club.”