Lula chooses Ricardo Lewandowski to head Justice department

This Thursday morning (11), President Lula (PT) announced that the vacancy left by Flávio Dino in the Ministry of Justice and Public Security will be occupied by the former minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Ricardo Lewandowski.

Dino is leaving the department to occupy a seat on the STF. Lewandowski – whose name had been considered for the Justice portfolio since Dino’s appointment to the Supreme Court – has a long history of decisions favorable to Lula while he served on the Court.

According to Lula, Lewandowski will take over the portfolio on February 1st. Dino will take up his position at the STF on the 22nd of the same month.

On Monday morning (8), amid preparations for the ceremony that marked one year of the events of January 8, President Lula called Lewandowski to talk and raised expectations about the confirmation of his name as head of the Ministry.

The new Minister of Justice is among the STF magistrates who voted to suspect the former Lava Jato judge, Sergio Moro, in the Guarujá (SP) triplex case. As a result, in June 2021, by 7 votes to 4, the STF annulled the charges against Lula relating to the case.

Among the arguments presented by the PT’s defense, and accepted by the majority of STF ministers, is the fact that Moro was part of the Bolsonaro government in command of the portfolio that will now be occupied by Lewandowski.

Also in June 2021, Lewandowski accepted a request from Lula’s defense and annulled the evidence produced against the PT member based on the leniency agreement signed between the construction company Odebrecht and the Federal Public Ministry.

The case revolved around the alleged payment of bribes to the PT member, by the construction company, in the purchase of the land where the new headquarters of the Lula Institute would be built, in São Paulo.

In February last year, in the second month of the Lula government, Lewandowski closed three criminal cases against the PT member.

In addition to closing the case that investigated alleged irregularities in the acquisition of the Lula Institute’s headquarters, the then STF minister also closed the action that investigated alleged illegalities in donations made to the Institute and another action regarding the acquisition of Swedish Saab-Gripen fighter jets for the Force Brazilian Air Force (FAB) in the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government. All three actions were already suspended due to decisions that highlighted the “illegality of the evidence”.

Recently, the former STF minister also demonstrated closeness to Movimento Sem-Terra (MST), which is historically linked to the PT and Lula. At an event promoted by the MST, at the beginning of December last year, Lewandowski criticized “bourgeois liberal democracy” and called the Movement an “example”.

“I want to start by saying that many called me excellent, but I want to say that the Brazilian people are excellent. Visiting the MST School [Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes], I realized what organized people are capable of. And the school is an example of this”, said Lewandowski at the time.

Appointed by Lula to the STF in 2006, during the PT member’s first term, Lewandowski left the STF in April last year. After retiring from the STF, the former minister was hired by the brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista as a senior legal consultant for the J&F Group. In 2017, the J&F group signed a leniency agreement worth R$11 billion with the Public Ministry within the scope of Operation Lava Jato. It is noteworthy that Lewandowski is a critic of Lava Jato.

Dino’s “right-hand man”, Cappelli will leave the Ministry

Well-liked by the government and also considered to take the place of Flávio Dino, “number 2” in the Justice department, Ricardo Cappelli will be left out of the new composition of the department.

Early this Thursday morning (11), Cappelli informed that he will take vacation in the next few weeks and then return to Brasília just to work on the transition to the new team. According to behind-the-scenes information obtained by Globonews, Cappelli would only continue in the portfolio if he could maintain the same position as Executive Secretary.

Between April and May 2023, Cappelli temporarily assumed command of the Institutional Security Office (GSI) of the Presidency of the Republic, after the press released images showing the GSI minister, General Gonçalves Dias, inside the Palácio do Planalto on the day of acts of vandalism.

Ricardo Cappelli is a journalist by training, with a postgraduate degree in Public Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). When Dino was governor of Maranhão, he was Secretary of State for Communication. In Dino’s first term in the state, Cappelli headed Maranhão’s institutional representation office in Brasília.

Furthermore, the new minister has already served as national secretary of Educational Sports and Sports Incentive in the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments.