Mendonça changes vote and undoes majority against intimate magazine

The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) André Mendonça changed his vote in the action that judges whether intimate searches of visitors in prisons are constitutional. With that, the majority that had formed hours before to prohibit the procedure was undone. According to the minister’s office, there was a material error when computing the vote, which was corrected.

Mendonça now appears as an adherent to the divergence opened by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who sees the possibility of carrying out intimate searches, provided that under pre-established protocols and specific rules. The theme was judged in the virtual plenary, in a session scheduled to end at 11:59 pm this Friday (19), informed Agência Brasil.

However, shortly after the vote was corrected, Minister Gilmar Mendes asked for the case to be highlighted. With that, now the analysis should be done in the conventional plenary, in which there is debate in person or by videoconference. In this case, the Supreme Court rules provide that the vote must also be redone. There is still no set date.

Earlier, a majority had formed around the position of the rapporteur, Minister Edson Fachin. For him, the practice of intimate searches is incompatible with the 1988 Constitution, among other points, for violating the dignity of the human person. Fachin agreed with the arguments presented in an extraordinary appeal to the STF, in which the defense of a woman from Rio Grande do Sul asked for the annulment of evidence obtained through intimate searches.

The appeal has recognized general repercussions. Thus, the outcome of the process should serve as a parameter for all similar legal cases. For this, most ministers approve a thesis to be followed by all courts in the country. Before the suspension of the trial, ministers Cármen Lúcia, Luís Roberto Barroso, Rosa Weber and Gilmar Mendes had voted with Fachin. Ministers Alexandre de Moraes, Dias Toffoli, Nunes Marques and now André Mendonça disagreed. Luiz Fux had not yet voted.