The Brazilian government under President Lula has embraced a new interpretation of transparency laws that enables the indefinite classification of official letters exchanged between the president and international leaders as 'personal correspondence.' Since the beginning of 2023, the Civil House has denied all requests—twelve in total—for copies of these letters, invoking the constitutional right to correspondence secrecy as grounds to withhold them. As a consequence, these documents could remain permanently sealed and inaccessible, as they fall outside the standard classification periods stipulated by Brazil's Access to Information Law (LAI).

The Access to Information Law establishes specific time frames for the classification of documents: confidential for five years, secret for fifteen, and ultra-secret for twenty-five years. However, in this new interpretation, the government is not classifying the correspondence under these categories, which means there is no statutory time frame for when, or if, they may become available to the public. This sets a concerning precedent regarding government transparency and the public's right to information in Brazil, potentially fostering a culture of opacity in the executive branch.

The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CGU) and the Mixed Commission for Re-evaluation of Information (CMRI), which serve as the final appeal avenues under the LAI, have approved all the refusals to disclose the correspondence. Ongoing press statements from the Presidency maintain that the letters should be treated as personal and confidential, thereby circumventing existing transparency commitments. This situation raises significant questions about the accountability of the Brazilian government, the potential misuse of secrecy provisions, and the broader implications for democratic governance in the country.