Deadline created by Moraes makes it difficult to postpone the Bolsonaro case – 06/21/2023 – Power

The decision of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) to impose a maximum period of 60 days for a trial to be suspended at the request of a minister makes it more difficult to postpone the analysis of the action that could make former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) ineligible.

In February, the court limited the powers of judges in cases of requests for review, situations in which a member of the court interrupts the trial to be able to more calmly assess the content of the controversy at hand.

The limitation was determined after approval of an internal resolution prepared by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, president of the TSE and main executioner of Bolsonarism in the Judiciary. The other ministers voted in favor of the change, which was inspired by the STF (Federal Supreme Court) – the court adopted a similar rule in December last year.

In this way, the chance of a minister using the judicial strategy of asking for a review and delaying returning the action with the aim of delaying or even preventing a decision that would go against his vote was reduced.

Moraes himself has been telling interlocutors, in private conversations, that there will be no postponement and that Bolsonaro’s trial should end this semester.

There is an expectation among allies of the former president that Minister Kassio Nunes Marques will present a request for a visit. He was appointed to the Supreme by Bolsonaro and usually remains faithful to Bolsonarist agendas in progress in the Judiciary.

However, this scenario is seen behind the scenes of the court as unlikely, precisely because the measure would have no practical effect – it would only delay the trial for about two months.

In addition, it could cause discomfort with colleagues and would be strategically bad for Kassio, who will assume the presidency of the court next year and needs to maintain good relations with colleagues to be able to impose his agenda at the head of the TSE.

In addition, he would run the risk of the eventual request for a view occurring with the result of the judgment already defined, since five justices are entitled to vote before him.

The resolution on the subject provides that the magistrate has 30 days, extendable for another 30 to return a case that he requested to see. If the deadline is not respected, the process is automatically released to be included in the agenda and analyzed by the court as a whole.

The Supreme Court took a similar decision and imposed a limit of 90 days for the return of cases.

Moraes defended the rule change. “The measure aims to improve procedures relevant to requests for review and the processing of precautionary measures, in order to improve the jurisdictional provision in honor of the principles of celerity and collegiality”, said the minister in February.

The norm may have a direct effect on the progress of the trial that will begin this Thursday (22) to analyze the action in which the PDT asks Bolsonaro to be ineligible for eight years for abuse of power and misuse of the media.

The basis of the action is Bolsonaro’s call last year for a meeting with ambassadors to discredit, without evidence, the electoral system.

Although the meeting with foreign representatives gave rise to the action, the assessment of court observers is that the process will be within a larger context in relation to Bolsonaro’s repeated statements and actions against the Brazilian electoral system and against ministers of superior courts.

Thus, the tendency is for the electoral court to go against the understanding established in 2017 by rejecting the impeachment of the ticket of Dilma Rousseff (PT) and Michel Temer (MDB).

At the time, the TSE decided by a majority to disregard new evidence presented after the action was filed. This evidence pointed to other suspicions, related to slush funds, against the two politicians.

The court has already given indications of analyzing a broader context when it ratified the decision of the rapporteur, Minister Benedito Gonçalves, to include the draft of the coup found in the house of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres in the case file.

The Electoral Public Ministry, in turn, saw in Bolsonaro’s attitudes “a set of assertions that make up the purpose of discrediting the legitimacy of the digital voting system” employed since 1996 in the country.

At the demonstration, the Attorney General’s Office argued that the ineligibility does not apply to Bolsonaro’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2022 campaign, former minister Walter Braga Netto (PL).

The Attorney General’s Office considered that Bolsonaro’s speeches had “serious consequences” for the acceptance of the elections and that the speech was “evidently capable of affecting the confidence of part of the population” in the legitimacy of the polls.

The climate in Bolsonaro’s defense and among allies is one of pessimism. If he is declared ineligible, he will be unable to contest elections for eight years – a period starting from the 2022 election. According to current legislation, if convicted, the former president will be able to run again in 2030, aged 75 , thus staying away from three elections until then (one of them being the national one in 2026).