Barroso denies early retirement from the STF – 01/04/2023 – Power

The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Luís Roberto Barroso denied this Saturday (1st) what he called “speculation” about a possible anticipation of his retirement in the court.

“It is a speculation that must come from someone who is wanting my vacancy. I actually don’t have any plans in that sense”, said the minister to Sheet in the United States during the Brazil Conference, an event organized by students from Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) universities in Cambridge, in the Boston area.

Barroso is 65 years old, 10 less than the age established for retirement by the STF, and should only leave the court in 2033. If he does, he increases to three the number of ministers that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT ) will appoint until the end of his mandate.

The first appointment will be to replace Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who leaves the court on the 11th. The second will be for Rosa Weber, who turns 75 in October this year.

Barroso takes over the presidency of the STF in October for a two-year term and it is speculated that he could leave the court at the end of that period, in 2025.

The minister will speak at the end of the day at the conference, but before that he attended other lectures, one of them by Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, author of “How Democracies Die”, who spoke about the challenges of democracy in Brazil and mentioned the attack on Three Powers on January 8.

For Levitsky, the response from institutions and the Brazilian right was “much healthier” and more vigorous than what happened in the invasion of the US Congress on January 6, 2021.

Barroso was also attacked on that date, when protesters graffitied the A Justiça statue, which is in front of the STF, with the phrase “perdeu, mané”, said by the minister to Bolsonaristas in November in New York, when he was the target of protests at an event that gathered other court judges.

Questioned after the lecture about the assessment of the American political scientist, Barroso agreed. “Even people who were former president voters [Jair Bolsonaro] they were outraged by those scenes of barbarism”, he said. “The reaction that Brazilian society had revealed a great democratic maturity, coming from people on both sides of the political spectrum”, he said.

Bolsonarist pages in the United States even shared the Brazil Conference schedule warning of Barroso’s presence at Harvard, but there were no protests until Saturday afternoon.

One of today’s most renowned political scientists, Levitsky stated that “the level of discontent in almost all countries in the region [América Latina] is incredibly high” and that, if Lula fails to respond to society’s demands, “which is not entirely possible”, there may be “easily the election of another populist alternative in 2026”, even if “removing an authoritarian leader from the power [Bolsonaro] it was a big thing, which doesn’t happen that often”.

The professor stated that the weakening of political parties that occurs in Brazil is a global phenomenon, even in countries in the region with strong subtitles such as Chile and Costa Rica, in a process that he called “Brazilization”. According to him, however, the existence of strong parties is essential for democracy, but until now politicians and social scientists have not discovered how to preserve these institutions in the 21st century.

Levitsky also stated that Brazil is going through a situation similar to that of the United States, in which criticizing current President Joe Biden is seen as a negative thing for supposedly favoring former President Donald Trump, and stated that “this is not a healthy place to be.”

He also defended the increase of diversity policies and said that the “only kind of democracy that can exist in Brazil and elsewhere is multiracial”.

---

UPCOMING RETIREMENTS AT THE SUPREME

GOVERNMENT 2023-2026

GOVERNMENT 2027-2030

• Luiz Fux (Apr.28)

• Carmen Lúcia (Apr.29)

• Gilmar Mendes (Dec.30)

GOVERNMENT 2031-2034

GOVERNMENT 2039-2042

GOVERNMENT 2043-2046

GOVERNMENT 2047-2050