InvestigationBrazil’s highest court is investigating the president and his clan. Guardian of the 1988 Constitution, the Federal Supreme Court has considerable powers. A permanent challenge launched to the Head of State who has targeted the institution.
Brazilians were known to be fond of telenovelas and football matches, but, for some time, a new and curious entertainment has been all the rage on the small national screen: the live broadcasts of the judgments handed down by the very austere Supremo Tribunal Federal (“supreme tribunal federal ”), the highest judicial body in the country. In appearance, however, nothing is more boring than these endless sessions, during which eleven judges in black robes detail their verdict on such and such a case in progress. This would be to forget the considerable weight acquired by this institution. The “Supreme” or “STF”, as it is nicknamed, is today the main bulwark of Brazilian democracy against the putschist impulses of the president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Sitting in Brasilia, on the Three Powers Square, exactly opposite the Presidential Palace of Planalto, the Federal Supreme Court is a permanent challenge to the Head of State, even in its location. Less than 300 meters separate Mr. Bolsonaro from the judges and their sumptuous offices, installed in the concrete and glass parallelepiped designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). In the square, it is now a trench warfare in which the executive and the judiciary are engaged.
Since the accession to power of Mr. Bolsonaro, the 1er January 2019, we no longer count the presidential decrees suspended, censored or canceled by the STF. Among other things, the judges thus blocked the transfer to the Ministry of Agriculture of powers in the delimitation of indigenous lands (2019), limited the liberalization of the carrying of firearms (2019), suspended the appointment of a relative of the president at the head of the federal police (2020)…
Against “digital militias”
The “Supreme” is also leading several judicial investigations directly targeting the executive power. Two, in particular, hold attention. The first dates from 2019 and relates to the massive dissemination of false information and threats against the STF. The second, which opened in July, focuses on the supposed existence of far-right “digital militias” operating online against Brazilian democracy.
The judges carried out searches, accompanied by preventive prison sentences, among relatives of the president, including the far-right deputy Daniel Silveira, a former police officer nostalgic for the military dictatorship (1964-1985), who had qualified a judge of the STF of ” Hobo “ and of “Son of a bitch”. Or Roberto Jefferson, ultra-controversial leader of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), according to which the magistrates of the institution are “Sodomites”.
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