Institutional Act Number Five

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Institutional Act Number Five (Portuguese: Ato Institucional Número Cinco), commonly known as AI-5, was the fifth of seventeen extra-legal Institutional Acts issued by the military government in the years following the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état.

AI-5 suspended most civil rights, including habeas corpus, allowed for the removal from office of opposition politicians, federal interventions in municipalities and states. It enabled institutionalization of arbitrary detention torture, and extrajudicial killing by the regime. It was issued by President Artur da Costa e Silva on December 13, 1968.^[1][2]

Institutional Acts were not subject to judicial review, and superseded both the previous 1946 constitution and the 1967 constitution enacted by the regime.^[3][4] By suspending habeas corpus, the AI-5 enabled human rights abuses by the regime.^[5]

Sometimes called o golpe dentro do golpe ('the coup within the coup'), AI-5 was the most impactful of all Institutional Acts.

Written by then Minister of Justice Luís Antônio da Gama e Silva, it came as a response to reactions against the regime, such as a demonstration by over fifty thousand people in Rio de Janeiro protesting the murder of student Edson Luís de Lima Souto by a member of the state Military Police, the March of the One Hundred Thousand, and the denial by the Chamber of Deputies of authorization to prosecute Congressman Márcio Moreira Alves, who had called Brazilians to boycott the September 7 Independence Day celebrations. It also aimed to consolidate the ambitions of a hardline faction within the regime which was unwilling to relinquish power in the foreseeable future.