Dino judge fought clashes, threatened to go on strike – 11/27/2023 – Power

Appointed by President Lula (PT) to take a seat on the STF (Supreme Federal Court), Flávio Dino will resume the career as a judge that he began in 1994 and left in 2006 to enter politics.

In 12 years as a judge, Dino gained notoriety and established himself as a leader in the category.

From 2000 to 2002, he was president of Ajufe (Association of Federal Judges), when he took up corporatist flags from the judiciary, threatened to go on strike for higher pay and fought with the then attorney general of the Union, Gilmar Mendes, who is now dean of the STF and supports him to reach the court.

Judges who helped Dino reach the leadership of the entity remember that since that time he already had the combative and confrontational profile that marked his performance in politics.

Historically, Ajufe members reached a consensus to define who would be president. In 1998, however, Dino was one of the leaders of the movement that aimed to defeat the entity’s then president, Vilson Darós, who was seeking re-election.

The agreement to avoid an internal dispute did not prevail, and Dino ran as Fernando Tourinho’s vice-president. Both emerged victorious and were protagonists in the dispute to improve the remuneration of the federal judiciary.

Together with other associations of judges, they pressured the federal government and the STF to grant housing assistance to judges as a way of improving the category’s remuneration.

They even threatened a strike in the Judiciary, but retreated after the Supreme Court gave a decision that guaranteed the benefit sought.

Less than two years later, when Dino was already the president of Ajufe, they threatened again in search of more salary. At the time, the idea was to take advantage of strikes by university professors and INSS employees to increase pressure for salary improvements.

Anamatra (National Association of Labor Magistrates) started a discussion about a strike, and the then president of Ajufe did not rule out joining the movement. “If the impasse remains, the tendency is for us to also have this discussion”, said Dino in November 2001 to Sheet.

In addition to the salary issue, Dino was also a defender of the sponsorship received by judicial entities, which were contested because they created a link between judges and companies at the same time that the category has the mission of remaining impartial to, eventually, impose judicial defeats on these companies.

In an interview on the eve of taking over Ajufe, the then federal judge defended the fact that private companies had paid travel expenses for ministers of the STF and the STJ (Superior Court of Justice).

“The trip was organized by the Association of Brazilian Magistrates. Ericsson and Nortel did not offer it in the office of each of the ministers. That would not be acceptable. The financing of congresses by companies is an absolutely normal fact and has been happening for at least two decades,” he said at the time.

Despite the usual corporatist struggle of judiciary associations, judges who made up Tourinho and Dino’s group say that both played a fundamental role in changing the entity’s profile.

The dispute in 1998 with the board that was in power occurred because there was an understanding that Ajufe should participate more actively in the public debate.

The assessment of Dino and his allies at the time was that the entity would only gain credibility with society to demand improvements to the category if it were more active from a political point of view.

In the view of the entity’s members, they were successful in their mission. And they list some advances in the Judiciary that occurred at that time to give weight to the thesis. One of them is the creation, in 2001, of special federal courts, which, at the time, only existed at the state level of justice.

They also mention that, in 2004, Congress approved a proposal to reform the Judiciary that had the influence of Ajufe. At the time, the entity’s president was Paulo Sérgio Domingues, who had been Dino’s deputy and, last year, became minister of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice).

The project approved by Congress was responsible for the federalization of crimes against human rights, an Ajufe banner, and for the creation of the CNJ (National Council of Justice), which was supported by the entity, but was opposed by other associations of magistrates.

Dino will also undergo a hearing by the Senate’s CCJ (Constitution and Justice Committee), which will prepare an opinion on the appointment and send the analysis to the plenary.

His allies claim that his history will be important for his performance in the highest body of the Judiciary. He became a judge at the age of 26 after graduating in law from the Federal University of Maranhão. Afterwards, he completed a master’s degree at the Federal University of Pernambuco.

In 2006, he left the judiciary to run for federal deputy and was elected to the position by the PC do B. In 2014, he was elected governor and held the post for two terms.

At the beginning of this year, he was appointed by Lula to take over the Ministry of Justice. In the post, he faced wear and tear due to his work in the area of ​​public security seen as inefficient.

However, he also stood out for being one of Lula’s most active ministers and with the greatest oratory power to publicly clash with the opposition.

It was at the head of the department that he consolidated his relationship with members of the STF who gave weight to his candidacy for a place on the court. This year, he approached ministers Alexandre de Moraes and Gilmar Mendes, Lula’s main interlocutors in the Supreme Court today and who supported Dino’s nomination for the position.