Lewandowski’s performance makes Lula want a similar profile

The trajectory of Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, who retired this Tuesday (11), is one of the factors that helps explain President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) predilection for a successor with a similar profile for the open seat in the Supreme Court. Federal Court (STF). In his 17 years on the Court, the minister, appointed by Lula himself in March 2006, was notable for remaining faithful to the ideals or interests of the PT in the criminal, economic and constitutional fields.

Lula’s personal lawyer, Cristiano Zanin, and lawyer Manoel Carlos de Almeida Neto, former advisor to Lewandowski at the STF, are currently in the running for the vacancy.

“Whoever replaces me needs to respect the Constitution, have courage and withstand pressure,” said Lewandowski, in a recent interview with GloboNews.

Pressure was not lacking. In times of greatest crisis for PT, such as during the monthly allowance trial, in the 2013 demonstrations, in the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff, or at the height of Operation Lava Jato, the minister took a stand against the punishment of influential members of the party, against public opinion and evidence of corruption or mismanagement of public resources. Still in the criminal area, he was responsible for leveraging custody hearings.

In the economic area, he stood out as a voice in defense of strong State participation in market regulation. Against the liberal agenda of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), he unsuccessfully tried to prevent the sale of Petrobras subsidiaries without congressional approval. He also voted, unsuccessfully, to overturn the law that gave autonomy to the Central Bank. This year, he managed to release, albeit provisionally, the appointment of politicians to the direction of state-owned companies.

In defense of fundamental rights, he was in favor of racial quotas in universities and on electoral plates, voted to end the imprisonment of pregnant women, forced the government to invest in prison reform, and took a proactive role to force the government to accelerate vaccination in the Covid pandemic.

Recall below, in more detail, some of these decisions.

monthly allowance

In 2012, as a reviewer of the monthly allowance process, Lewandowski voted for the acquittal of PT chiefs involved in buying parliamentary support. He considered that the ex-ministers José Dirceu and José Genoino and the ex-president of the Chamber João Paulo Cunha, all accused of corruption and condemned by the majority of the ministers, were innocent. He even tried to absolve former treasurer Delúbio Soares and the scheme’s operator, Marcos Valério, of gang crime.

When analyzing the accusations against Dirceu, he said that they were based on “mere inferences and conjectures”. Years earlier, in 2007, when the STF accepted the complaint and made 40 defendants guilty, he was caught in a restaurant saying that ministers voted “with a knife around their necks”, in a criticism of the press, which closely followed the scandal.

At the time, clashes with the rapporteur, Joaquim Barbosa, who voted for the condemnation of all of them, were frequent. In August 2012, in the first session of the trial, Barbosa said that Lewandowski acted with “disloyalty”, in defending that the process be sliced, to leave only those with privileged jurisdiction in the STF, an issue that had already been overcome.

In September, when Lewandowski defended that ministers consider arguments of the defense of the defendants when accepting the accusations, Barbosa demanded that he vote in a “sober” way. “Your Excellency is saying: ‘That’s how it’s done.’ Let’s stop this game of intrigue, ”he said. “I am baffled. I have not lost the opportunity to praise the clarity of your votes. You know I have admiration for Your Excellency. Your Excellency gave an excellent vote. I would never dare to insinuate that Your Excellency’s vote is incomplete,” he replied.

In 2013, in the judgment of appeals, Lewandowski was accused by his colleague of doing “chicana”, that is, of maneuvering to prolong the trial. At the session, he asked for a retraction, which was denied. “Your Excellency is saying that I am joking? I don’t admit it”, complained Lewandowski. “Do whatever reading you want”, countered Barbosa.

Car wash

In the first years of Lava Jato, Lewandowski suffered defeats in the trials. In 2016, he was defeated in the judgment that allowed the arrest in second instance; in 2018, he was also in the minority wing that voted to prevent Lula from being arrested for this reason.

The turnaround began in 2021, when Lewandowski allowed the petista to access Odebrecht’s leniency agreement, from which part of the evidence for his convictions came out. In this vein, he also gave the defense access to messages exchanged between members of the Lava Jato task force and its boss, former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, with former judge Sergio Moro. Despite having been illegally obtained by hackers, without their authenticity being proven, the dialogues were used to demoralize and dismantle the operation.

In this context, that same year, with a favorable vote by Lewandowski, the STF annulled the PT’s convictions and declared Moro a suspect, also burying the investigations that were against him. In that trial, Lewandowski embraced the PT’s discourse that Lava Jato would have caused damage to the Brazilian economy, by punishing contractors who committed corruption. At the time, he was confronted by Minister Luís Roberto Barroso.

“Does Your Excellency think that the problem was the confrontation of corruption, and not corruption?”, he questioned. Lewandowski denied this, saying that the “modus operandi” of Lava Jato would be “incompatible with the Democratic State of Law”. Afterwards, he began to mention “combinations” between Dallagnol and Moro revealed in the hacked messages.

“I thought Your Excellency was a guarantor. This is illicit evidence, collected through a crime”, countered Barroso. “It may be illicit, but anyway, it was widely publicized and not properly, in my view, contested,” Lewandowski responded. “So, crime pays for Your Excellency”, replied Barroso.

In recent years, Lewandowski “buried” a series of criminal actions against several Lava Jato defendants, who pointed to the nullity of the evidence delivered by Odebrecht, especially the systems that recorded payments to politicians. Like Lula, they claimed that there was no guarantee of the integrity of this data, due to the way it was stored.

This Monday (10), on his last day of work, the minister determined that a crime report be processed by the STF in which lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran accuses Moro and Dallagnol of attempted extortion, an accusation that had previously been rejected by the Federal Public Ministry. .

custody hearings

In 2015, when he assumed the presidency of the STF and the National Council of Justice (CNJ), Lewandowski launched a program to determine that anyone arrested in flagrante delicto would need to have their detention evaluated within 24 hours by the Judiciary.

The objective was to verify if there was violence, torture or irregularity on the part of the police. In the same year, the STF declared the measure constitutional and, in 2019, Congress approved a law establishing the procedure.

Although they recognize the legitimacy of the hearing to prevent violations of human rights, part of the criminalists and the Public Prosecutor’s Office have reservations, as they consider that in most dangerous criminal cases they are released quickly, all they need to do is to allege poor conditions in the jail or truculent action by the police.

Dilma’s Impeachment

In 2016, as president of the STF, he also presided over the final trial of former president Dilma Rousseff (PT) in the impeachment process. In this role, he innovated by allowing senators to vote in slices for the single punishment provided for in the Constitution: removal from office with disqualification from exercising public functions for 8 years. Thus, even impeached, the former president remained able to run for election or assume public office.

Subsequently, Lewandowski expressed criticism of the process and punishment of the petista. In a class at USP in September of that year, he said that the conviction was “a setback for democracy”.

Last year, the minister led a commission of jurists in the Senate charged with proposing a new impeachment law. The bill presented allows the slicing of the punishment, excludes crimes of fiscal responsibility that led to Dilma’s conviction and also shields STF ministers from their decisions.

State and Central Bank

In 2018, Lewandowski signed an injunction to require that the sale of shares in state-owned companies, which imply loss of control by the Public Power, should be preceded by Congressional authorization by law, which would make it difficult, for example, to sell assets and subsidiaries. In 2019, the plenary of the STF mitigated the decision, establishing that this would only be valid in the case of matrices.

This year, in a new pen, the minister suspended part of the 2016 law that prevented politicians from taking over the management of public companies – they could only do so after fulfilling a 3-year quarantine outside of Executive positions or electoral campaigns. The purpose of the law was to prevent conflicts of interest and favoring parties. Lewandowski, however, understood that this would violate the fundamental rights of politicians.

The decision benefited the new Lula government and Centrão, interested in using state-owned companies as a bargaining chip in negotiations for political support.

In 2021, Lewandowski tried to overthrow the autonomy of the Central Bank, approved by Congress the previous year. Accepting arguments from PT and PSOL, he voted for the formal unconstitutionality of the law, understanding that it came from the Legislature, not the Executive. In that case, he was defeated by the majority of the Court, which considered that the measure was jointly proposed and approved with broad support from both powers.

Racial quotas

Racial quota policies in Brazil managed to advance in Brazil from the recognition, in 2012, of its constitutionality. That year, Lewandowski reported action by the former DEM against its implementation in public universities. Affirmative actions, he said at the time, constitute a type of “positive discrimination with a view to encouraging the social inclusion of traditionally excluded groups”.

Prisons

In 2012, in an injunction, he ordered the release of all pregnant women arrested and mothers of children up to 12 years old who had not committed violent crimes – in this set, it included many who were convicted of drug trafficking. Their imprisonment, for him, jeopardized the full development of children.

In 2015, Lewandowski obtained unanimity in the Court to allow the Judiciary to force the Executive to spend resources to reform prisons, in order to improve the conditions of incarceration.

Pandemic

Between 2020 and 2021, Lewandowski reported 14 actions that accused the Bolsonaro government of inaction in the fight against the coronavirus. The minister allowed mandatory vaccination, by imposing civil restrictions, and forced the Executive to draw up a vaccination plan. He also authorized states to acquire vaccines before the federal government, and to adopt preventive measures, including restrictions on circulation, even contrary to federal plans.