Lewandowski retires and leaves sensitive actions to the government – 04/10/2023 – Politics

Appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to compose the STF (Federal Supreme Court), Justice Ricardo Lewandowski leaves the court this Tuesday (11) after 17 years in office. In its drawer are actions sensitive to the government.

Among them, cases that are of direct interest to the Presidency —such as the one that analyzes obstacles to the appointment of politicians in state-owned companies. In all, there are 245 processes from his report that will go to his successor.

The most quoted by Lula to succeed the minister is lawyer Cristiano Zanin, who acted in the PT’s defense in the Lava Jato Operation cases.

Generally speaking, the reporting processes of a retiring minister go to his successor. But if someone claims urgency during the replacement process, it can be redistributed by the presidency of the STF to another minister.

There is no set deadline for the replacement to take place.

Lewandowski’s vacancy in the Second Panel of the Supreme Court must also follow a similar rite, except if any minister from another class asks for reassignment, which has not been done so far. The criterion used for this request is seniority.

With the minister leaving one month early, the STF will have ten magistrates. There is no fixed rule for how the court decides on cases of ties during trial sessions. In requests for habeas corpus, the most favorable outcome for the defendant prevails.

One of the processes that the minister will leave deals with the banning of politicians in charge of public companies. In March, Lewandowski granted an injunction to overturn the 36-month quarantine imposed on party leaders or those who have acted in electoral campaigns so that they could hold these positions.

The rule was imposed by the State-owned Law, approved by Congress in 2016 in the wake of corruption scandals involving Petrobras and other public companies investigated by Lava Jato. A request for a view from Minister André Mendonça interrupted the analysis of the case.

Another process that must be passed on to his successor deals with the accusations made by lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran against Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR), a former Lava Jato judge. At the end of March, Lewandowski sent the material for analysis by the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras.

It will be up to the attorney general to decide whether the alleged crime of extortion reported by the attorney should be investigated. Tacla Duran claims to have evidence that she paid $613,000 to lawyers linked to now federal deputy Rosângela Moro (União Brasil-SP), Moro’s wife.

Tacla Duran worked from 2011 to 2016 for Odebrecht and has been appointed by the Federal Public Ministry as the financial operator of the company’s schemes. Since then, he has been making a series of accusations.

On Monday night (10), Lewandowski established the competence of the STF to analyze the case. He also determined that the PGR carry out a more detailed analysis of the facts and evaluate any request to initiate an investigation.

According to Lewandowski, the PGR stated that the chronology of the exposed facts “points to the possible interference of Sérgio Moro in the judgment of the processes involving Operation Lava Jato —including the processes involving Rodrigo Tacla Duran”.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, this would have happened even after Moro’s dismissal from the position of judge, “also going through acts practiced in the condition of Minister of State for Justice”.

Lewandowski was also the rapporteur of a procedure that deals with the legality of the denunciation of the contractor Odebrecht and the hacked data of Lava Jato authorities.

Lewandowski’s departure will also affect the analysis of processes at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), since the minister’s vacancy in that court will be filled by Kassio Nunes Marques – appointed by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

He will be able to vote for the TSE, for example, in the most advanced process that could result in Bolsonaro’s ineligibility. The action addresses a meeting promoted by Bolsonaro at the Alvorada Palace with ambassadors in July last year, when the then president made attacks without evidence on the electoral system.

When communicating the anticipation of his retirement, on the 30th, Lewandowski said that he had not had recent conversations with Lula to deal with a possible appointment of his former adviser Manoel Carlos de Almeida Neto, the name preferred by him to the STF.

He also said that the choice is the sole decision of the president and that he would not dare to make any suggestions in that regard. However, he defended that his successor be someone who can withstand pressure and who values ​​the individual guarantees of those investigated.

In addition, he stated that his early departure was due to academic and professional commitments that awaited him. He has not received official invitations from the government to take up office.

It is speculated that he may occupy a vacancy on the legal council at CNI (National Confederation of Industry).

Close advisors claim that the minister now plans to invest in a career in legal advice. The activity is based on issuing legal opinions when requested. Documents of the type signed by renowned jurists usually bring more prestige to actions.

He has expressed a willingness to move to Brasília for this purpose – the minister uses the air shuttle between the capital and São Paulo.

When he announced his retirement, the minister emphasized that he was proud to be guided by the guaranteeist vision —a position that honors the fundamental rights of the citizen.

Despite the speech, the public defender of the Union who works at the STF Gustavo de Almeida Ribeiro published a study on the internet in which he analyzed the requests for habeas corpus made by the court ministers and concluded that Lewandowski was one of the strictest.

In a four-month cut in requests for habeas corpus made by the DPU (Defensoria Pública da União) to the Second Panel of the court, the minister appeared in penultimate place among those who decided most in favor of the defendant between February and May 2021 and in last place in the same period of 2022.

Among the most remembered moments of Lewandowski’s passage through the STF is the presidency of the impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff (PT) in the Senate, in 2016.

He denied requests to try to block the process, but accepted the request of the PT’s defense to vote separately for the loss of mandate and the disqualification from exercising public functions for eight years. The appeal allowed Dilma not to be declared unqualified for public office.

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Processes that Lewandowski leaves in the drawer

• Bans on politicians to take charge of public companies
• Operation Spoofing, which investigated hacking of Lava Jato authorities
• Accusations made by lawyer Tacla Duran against Sergio Moro and Deltan Dallagnol