Cármen Lúcia:Bolsonaro attacked STF ministers – 06/30/2023 – Politics

Minister Cármen Lúcia was responsible for giving the vote that formed the majority this Friday (30) to make former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) ineligible in a trial at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).

The magistrate made an emphatic defense of the colleagues of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) who starred in clashes with the former representative and said that Bolsonaro made “attack to ministers” of the Supreme Court.

“The criticism made of any public servant happens and is part of it, what cannot be done is for a public servant, in a public space, with public equipment and public broadcasting, to attack ministers of the Supreme Court as if he were not criticizing the institution itself — and the Democracy is made with an independent judiciary,” he said.

Cármen also stated that ministers Luís Roberto Barroso, Edson Fachin and Alexandre de Moraes, who were attacked by Bolsonaro, have notorious legal knowledge and that the criticisms are baseless.

She accepted the inclusion in the process of the draft of the coup found in the house of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres. Cármen said, however, that it is not necessary to analyze other facts besides the meeting with ambassadors in which Bolsonaro discredited the electronic voting machines to declare the former president’s ineligibility.

“What is here is not a film, what is being appreciated is a scene, what happened and for which there is no controversy in the records. Therefore, this meeting took place and in this meeting, in a monologue, the first investigated, who was President of the Republic, less than three months before the elections, that there was an exhibition basically on some themes, all of them related to the election. That is the object”, he said.

The magistrate rejected the defense’s thesis that the Electoral Justice would not have the attribution to analyze the case.

“The Electoral Justice is competent by constitutional and legal determination, because we are here dealing with a proven and uncontested occurrence that would have somehow damaged the normality and legitimacy of the electoral process”, he said.

Carmen’s vote is the fifth of the trial, in a court that has seven ministers. He cast the majority vote to make the former president ineligible until 2030, when he will be 75.

After her, Minister Kassio Nunes Marques began his vote. Alexandre de Moraes, president of the court, is still missing.

This Thursday (29), Carmen had already come out in defense of the rapporteur of the action, Minister Benedito Gonçalves.

She interrupted Raul Araújo, who was reading a vote against Bolsonaro’s ineligibility and said there was no connection between the action and the coup draft found by the Federal Police at the home of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres.

The action against Bolsonaro was presented by the PDT and focuses on a meeting that took place in July last year with foreign ambassadors at the Palácio da Alvorada. At the time, less than three months before the election, the then president made false and distorted statements about the electoral process, claiming to be based on official data, in addition to seeking to discredit TSE ministers.

“It didn’t seem to me that the reporting minister’s vote had any reference, neither authorship nor responsibility, of the first investigated [com a minuta golpista]”, said Carmen.

The first investigated, as he is called in the action, is Bolsonaro. “I, for example, in my vote, do not even use this data. I only voted for the scene that is the object of care [a reunião com embaixadores]”, he added.

Raul countered and said that there was “plenty of reference” to the minutes in Benedito’s vote.

The process at the TSE targets Bolsonaro and Walter Braga Netto, a former minister who was a candidate for vice on the defeated ticket of the PL to the Presidency in 2022. A majority has already been formed, however, against the ineligibility of Braga Netto —the four ministers who have already voted had this understanding.

Two of the ministers who voted this Thursday, Floriano de Azevedo Marques and André Ramos Tavares are professors at USP and took office in May, in a change in the composition of the court influenced by the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes.

On Tuesday (27), the rapporteur had stated that it was not possible to turn a blind eye to anti-democratic speeches with lies and violent speeches, also criticizing the trivialization of the coup d’état and highlighting the epic attacks by the former president using the image of the Armed Forces.

Benedito defended that his vote be forwarded to the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) and to ongoing criminal inquiries at the STF (Federal Supreme Court) to determine whether investigations against Bolsonaro for the conduct under debate are possible beyond the Electoral Justice.

The ex-president’s lawyer, Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho, already admits to appealing to the STF in case of defeat in the electoral court.