Cases of STF ministers involved with political groups multiply

The presence of Ricardo Lewandowski, from the Federal Supreme Court (STF), at an event of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), last Saturday (11), is not an isolated case in the daily life of ministers of the Court. In recent months, situations in which magistrates get involved in meetings and activities promoted by political groups have multiplied.

It is frequent, for example, the participation of ministers in Lide meetings, a group of business leaders coordinated by the former governor of São Paulo João Doria. In November 2022 and February of this year, Alexandre de Moraes, Gilmar Mendes, Luís Roberto Barroso and Ricardo Lewandowski participated in these meetings. At the November event, whose theme was “Brazil and respect for freedom and democracy”, Cármen Lúcia and Dias Toffoli were also among the guests.

Not only the presence, but also the ministers’ statements have touched on political controversies that, in past times, would have tended to be avoided. At the Lide event in February, which took place in Lisbon, Gilmar Mendes stated that Brazil “was being governed by people from the basement”. “This is a given of reality. People from the militia of Rio de Janeiro who play a leading role in national politics,” he said.

It was at this same meeting of the Lide group that Alexandre de Moraes and Ricardo Lewandowski defended a regulation of social networks conceived within the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). According to Moraes, a TSE commission will send proposals to Congress with “mechanisms for regulating social networks”.

At the beginning of last year, Minister Cármen Lúcia participated in a meeting with left-wing female leaders to prepare and sign a manifesto that defended the expansion of access to abortion in Brazil. The event had famous figures from the political left, such as Gleisi Hoffmann (PT-PR) and Marta Suplicy, and no one from the right.

Comments by judges with a political bias have also been common, implicitly or explicitly involving some personalities judged by the ministers. There are frequent, for example, statements by ministers on situations involving people judged in the investigations of the fake news.

During the 2022 elections, Barroso used Twitter to send political indirections against right-wing figures. Every Friday, the minister recommends a book, a thought and a song on his social network. On the Friday before the second round of the 2022 presidential election, he indicated the song “Já vai tarde”, by the group Mania de Ser, in an obvious reference to the then re-election candidate Jair Bolsonaro (PL-RJ).

Political preferences have also been made explicit by ministers in some attitudes. In December, ministers Alexandre de Moraes, Dias Toffoli, Ricardo Lewandowski and Gilmar Mendes went to President Lula’s (PT) graduation party. The celebration was held at the home of lawyer Antonio Carlos de Almeida Castro, known as Kakay, one of the greatest combatants in the now defunct Operation Lava Jato. At the event, Lula made a speech with harsh criticism of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), former judge and senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) and former Lava Jato prosecutor and deputy Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR). .

Fama encouraged the politicization of STF ministers; law requires impartiality

The discussion about the impartiality of STF ministers was brought to the fore once more after Ricardo Lewandowski appeared at the MST event alongside the revolutionary militant and founder of the group, João Pedro Stédile. During the event, Lewandowski stated that “representative democracy, bourgeois liberal, party democracy”, is in crisis.

Report published by People’s Gazette this Monday (13th) explains that the participation of ministers in events of this type can characterize party-political activity, compromise the principles of impartiality and impersonality and undermine judicial independence. This is especially contrary to the principles of the operation of the Judiciary when judges do not declare themselves prevented and suspected of judging matters related to the positions they have adopted.

In the collection of texts “Supremos Erros: unconstitutional decisions of the STF” (2020), jurists Antonio Jorge Pereira Júnior and Milton Vasconcelos Barbosa defend the thesis that the politicization of the Judiciary and judicial activism were reinforced from the 2000s, when Supreme ministers began to appear frequently on TV, and that this would explain the growing involvement of judges in politics. Driven by vanity, they would have succumbed to politicization.

Ministers began to gain notoriety especially after 2002, with the trial of the Mensalão case, which turned some judges into celebrities. Until then, the work of the Supreme was little known to the population, and STF ministers tended to carry out their duties in a more discreet manner.