New titular judge of Lava Jato is critical of Moro and Deltan – 02/15/2023 – Power

The judge who occupies the chair that was once Sergio Moro is openly critical of the methods of Operation Lava Jato.

Eduardo Appio, 52, took over the title of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba on the 7th, responsible for processes and investigations remaining from the operation in Paraná.

He takes over from magistrate Luiz Antonio Bonat, who was the holder from 2019 until last year, when he received promotion to the second instance.

Appio defines himself as a guarantor. In recent years, he participated in a program of debates on legal topics, by journalist Luís Nassif on YouTube, in which the operation was one of the main targets of the participants.

He used expressions about the work of Moro and former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol as “comedy” and “punitivist empire”.

In one of the editions, last year, he even debated with the lawyer Cristiano Zanin, who defends President Lula. He said he was “a huge fan” of the defender’s work.

A Sheet Appio defends the revision of the thesis that “Lava Jato died”, in a reference to Moro and Deltan’s speech in their candidacies for the Legislature last year.

He states that he seeks to expand the dedicated team and avoid prescriptions, which will include complaints to the National Council of Justice if there are no measures from other judges in cases initially opened in Paraná.

The operation’s task force ended in 2021, and frequent operations in Paraná have not occurred since that time. But there are still dozens of criminal actions pending judgment in Curitiba.

Appio has more than 20 years of experience in the Federal Court, in addition to being a prosecutor.

He was chosen for the new post on the basis of seniority among magistrates who signed up. In his academic life, he was mentored in his master’s degree by retired lawyer and attorney Lênio Streck, one of Lava Jato’s most bitter opponents.

The judge now says that the operation had high points, such as the return of diverted resources, and low points, such as the dialogues in the Telegram application that show collaboration between Moro and prosecutors, initially revealed by The Intercept Brasil website in 2019 and the target of a series of reports from Sheet.

He also claims that he would never use the office to gain political projection. “I certainly wouldn’t have elected a trustee — because in my building there was only the Brazilian flag in the elections.”

What still remains today in Lava Jato at the 13th Court of Curitiba? Today there are 71 confidential procedures. I’m still looking for the total data of assets and values ​​safeguarded [em processos na Vara]. We sent 11 criminal actions to the Electoral Court in recent months. We will forward many others.

It was only after the first hearings that I began to understand the nuances of what the whistleblowers call the “rule of the game”, which would be the payment of bribes of 1% to 2% of all Petrobras work. Some say it would have been a tradition for a long time, going back to the beginning of the 80’s. But let’s find out and compare versions.

The operation made a specific cut, starting in January 2003, the first year of Lula’s first government. The issues of the past [antes de 2003] were not questioned in previous proceedings.

There was a clear cut made by the Federal Public Ministry, from 2003 until now, due to the gigantic size of the operation. I’m not saying that there was bad faith on the part of the MPF.

Ultimately, we are trying to get closer to a historical reality, both to judge judicial processes and to leave a reliable historical record for the future, and not just the versions of the right or the left.

Mr. narrates part of the complexity of Lava Jato. Why did you decide to apply for this role? The first reason is professional. My professional training has always been in criminal law. I was a prosecutor for three years, a judge for a year and a half, almost always working on criminal matters. But the last ten years were in an appeal class, dealing only with social security matters. I understood that I was underused.

And there’s the personal challenge: I consider myself emotionally mature, stable, ready to face it.

Mr. talks about affinity with criminal law, wanted to take over the Lava Jato Court and has already said that he seeks a historical reconstruction. Mr. wants to reconstruct the history of Lava Jet? I want to reinforce the credibility of the Federal Court, ensure ideological or party-political neutrality. Absolute neutrality. It was a very controversial operation, which produced both good and bad things. It is important to show the parties that the judge who is there is a neutral judge, who wants to ensure constitutional guarantees. I am considered as a guarantor judge.

About what went right in Lava Jato and what went wrong, the arrest to extract accusations was a problem that Mr. noticed? I read many reviews that this could have happened. It would be reckless and frivolous for me to state categorically.

I had an academic commitment with myself and with my students to write about the subject, not only to criticize, but to present propositional measures that would avoid this in the future, that would isolate the judge from any pressure, including from society itself.

Lava Jato ended up doing a lot of schooling. There was jurisprudence that endorsed certain mechanisms because it produced concrete results.

There is a very strong emotional appeal to the discourse that society yearns for change. It wants to, but the changes will not come, unless at a very high cost, which we are witnessing through the Judiciary, however frustrating that may be.

It would become a superpower to make political proposals for major structural changes, like “20 measures against impunity”, that thing. That’s politics. If you want to do politics, go to politics. So much so that current federal deputy Dallagnol and current senator Sergio Moro went into politics. They saw that within the Judiciary and the Public Ministry it is unconstitutional to do this.

This I have always defended. Judiciary is linked to principles.

The judge will be tempted every day to the seduction of judicial populism. It is a temptation that we live with every day, especially younger judges.

Mr. is critical of President Lula’s arrest. I would like you to explain better. The question of the current President Lula is illustrative. It doesn’t matter the person, it is what matters least, what matters is the ‘case’ of the law.

For us academics who write about law, it involves the requirements for pretrial detention. [provisória], the need or not to arrest a person, in this case, over 70 years old, without us being able to show in a very concrete way that if he is released, he will continue to perpetrate crimes. There, critics of the current president’s arrest said exactly that.

And it has merit in my opinion, as a teacher. Why? The crimes mentioned in the complaint [contra Lula] had occurred, according to the Public Ministry, many years ago. [Portanto,] it is evident that those legal and constitutional requirements were not present in my very modest opinion. It is a case that has already become final [não há mais possibilidade de recurso] at the Supreme Court, it is a closed case.

There was a Supreme Court decision authorizing the arrest of convicts in second instance [na época, como era o caso de Lula]. The issue of provisional execution was later reversed. How many people in all of Brazil had the execution started [dessa forma]? Ten people, five people?

The Supreme Court reversed its own decision [sobre o tema, em 2019] because he considered it to be a miscarriage of justice.

The central question was this: were there pre-trial detention requirements at that time? Was there a need for absolute isolation from crimes that had been committed long ago? To what extent did these court decisions interfere in the 2018 elections [quando Lula estava preso]? The Constitution creates certain constraints, guarantees, so that the electoral process is isolated as much as possible from judicial attributions.

The 2018 elections are distant in time. But I think it is the role of journalism, historians, academics, law students, to look into this case. The most important case was that of the current president. It was the one that had the greatest national and international repercussions, it was the case that undoubtedly interfered in the 2018 elections. Former President Bolsonaro said several times that many of the reasons he had been elected were thanks to his actions and everything that happened. at Lava Jato.

We want the same law for everyone, the same guarantees for Lula, [Michel] Temer, Bolsonaro or Mr. Joao da Silva.

Mr. He has a career as a jurist, as a law professor, and participated for a long time in a program on YouTube in which he made comments and used harsh terms to refer to Lava Jato. Mr. don’t you think that the neutrality that mr. would like to apply may be questioned on account of these statements passed? I don’t think I’ve ever done personal criticism. They were always critical of the methods. And some isolated episodes of Lava Jato were worthy of a slapstick comedy. Like that question about Aleijadinho’s crucifix that Lula would have taken home [Em 2016, procuradores suspeitaram de apropriação de uma peça histórica, segundo mostraram diálogos no aplicativo Telegram, o que se mostrou falso]. There were things that fell into popular folklore at the time. Creativity took wings and got too close to the sun, and the characters ended up getting their wings burned and they fell.

I think it’s much more important to discuss cheating than to discuss the couch. Are we going to discuss who criticizes everything that happened and aren’t we going to discuss the contents of Vaza Jato? Everything that happened was said by the unsaid. On the contrary, everyone was elected.

His stance is different from other fellow judges. Yes, but what about Vaza Jato’s dialogues? They were derived from illicit evidence, and that was acknowledged, but what about the moral, political, and ethical debate? Everything was swept under the rug, as if nothing had happened. We all read the dialogues in perplexity, we have to resign ourselves and imagine that this is the daily life of prosecutors and judges. Is not true. I’ve been at this for 30 years. I never saw.

I participated in the program, I do not regret it. Even on a personal level, I have nothing against Moro, against Deltan Dallagnol. But that doesn’t stop me from criticizing the operation as a whole, its historical role. I thought it was interesting to take a stand at that moment, when the hegemony was punitive discourse, getting your foot in the door and tearing up the Constitution. I was on the right side of history.

when moro was here [na 13ª Vara de Curitiba], he was asked about electoral pretensions. Mr. would you go into politics? I don’t have [pretensões], zero. Moro said he didn’t have it, right?

If I went into politics, I would have to do the opposite. Instead of criticizing Lava Jato, I would say that it was the best thing that happened in Brazil. Or, as Deltan said this week in an interview, it would say that politicians killed Lava Jato. Negative. Lava Jato is alive and, if it’s up to me, it will remain very much alive. When he says that, an urban legend is created. How did it all end? There are 237 criminal actions here.

One of the judge’s obligations is to avoid the statute of limitations. We don’t want a Banestado 2 case [escândalo dos anos 2000]. We, who are in the Judiciary, have an obligation to face the processes. There is a huge responsibility on our shoulders.

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X-ray | Eduardo Fernando Appio, 52

Since 1999, he has been a federal judge for the 4th Region (which encompasses the southern states). He was also a prosecutor in Rio Grande do Sul. He holds a PhD from the Federal University of Santa Catarina and did postdoctoral work at the Federal University of Paraná. He wrote, among other books, “Minority Law”