Presidency of Barroso increases pressure on STF – 07/23/2023 – Politics

The inauguration of Minister Luís Roberto Barroso in charge of the STF (Federal Supreme Court) in October this year should take the court even further to the center of the political debate and increase the court’s wear and tear.

The magistrate, who likes the spotlight and usually gives interviews and comments on events in the country, will take over from Minister Rosa Weber, who has a discreet profile and avoids giving public statements away from the plenary in trials.

The fear among ministers in private conversations is that the Supreme Court will be even more exposed and the figure of Barroso in the presidency will reinforce the militancy speech of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) that the STF is a political actor that goes beyond its attributions of last resort of the Judiciary.

Recently, the minister was involved in controversy by including himself among those responsible for defeating Bolsonaro in last year’s elections.

“We defeated censorship, we defeated torture, we defeated Bolsonarism to allow democracy and the free manifestation of all people”, he said on the last 12th at an event of the UNE (National Union of Students).

Despite the statement having increased the wear and tear of the Supreme Court and inserted the court into political friction, the minister made internal moves in the opposite direction, in order to appease moods in the court.

At the height of Lava Jato, the STF experienced a rift rarely seen. The court was divided between supporters and critics of the operation, and judgments on the subject exposed fights that were usually restricted to the backstage.

Barroso had clashes with other members of the court, such as Ricardo Lewandowski and Gilmar Mendes. The first has already retired and with the second he made a reconciliation move.

The rapprochement began in the Covid-19 pandemic, when Bolsonaro raised the tone against the court and the ministers put their differences aside to unite in defense of the Supreme Court’s performance.

This year, in yet another proof that they not only made peace, but have been in tune, they took an unprecedented initiative and jointly signed the vote on the national nursing floor.

The minister’s initiative is part of the strategy to create an enabling environment for him to be able to impose his agenda and leave a legacy after his two-year term at the head of the court.

Gilmar is the dean of the Supreme Court and one of the ministers with the greatest ability to articulate the court. In the administration of Minister Luiz Fux, for example, Gilmar was one of the main obstacles for Fux to be able to approve the internal changes he wanted.

Rosa had to take charge of the court to unlock the projects dreamed of by her predecessor. The profile of someone who has always remained distant from the vanities that move the court’s internal disputes led Rosa to have a more successful administration for having implemented structural changes in the court.

It was during her tenure that the Supreme Court changed the bylaws to resolve two major problems at the court: the excess of individual decisions and requests for a review (more time to analyze the process) with no deadline to be returned. Both measures were regulated and restricted.

Barroso does not have the same line of action as Rosa, but he has been seeking internal pacification even before assuming the presidency.

One of the themes that the magistrate must embrace is the defense of the preservation of the environment. The minister is still waiting for the last two months of Rosa’s term to define the agenda that will be taken to the full court.

The minister must guide two of the most sensitive processes under way in the court for analysis by the plenary in August: decriminalization of drugs and the timeframe for the demarcation of indigenous lands.

If the two judgments are not concluded by requests for review, it will be up to Barroso to choose the right moment to bring to the analysis of his colleagues the actions that have the potential to stir up feelings with Congress.

This, by the way, is another fear of some ministers. Barroso has always been a defender of the “enlightened” role of the STF, that is, the role of an institution that, at times, needs to go beyond the decisions of the other two Powers.

“The role of the Enlightenment must be exercised with great parsimony and self-restraint, in situations in which it is necessary to push history. In some crucial moments of the civilizing process, humanist reason needs to impose itself on the majority common sense”, wrote the minister in 2018 in an article published in Sheet.

One of the marks that Barroso intends to leave is the expansion of the transparency of the virtual plenary. One of the measures is to facilitate, for example, the display of oral arguments by lawyers in the public system in which justices insert their votes.

The magistrate also intends to pay great attention to the CNJ (National Council of Justice), despite the challenge of taking over the body responsible for punishing political manifestations by judges amid the controversy of his statements about having defeated Bolsonaro.

The minister is studying ways to make the council work to reduce the overload of cases in all courts in the country.

The magistrate also wants to give special attention to tax enforcement actions and the payment of precatories.

The minister has already started meetings with the team that will help him preside over the court. For the general secretariat of the court, an internal body dedicated to judicial action in defining the agenda of trials and distribution of cases, he chose Aline Osório, who held an equivalent position in Barroso’s management at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).

For the general directorate, responsible for the administrative matters of the STF, the chosen one was Eduardo Toledo, who held the same post in the administrations of ministers Dias Toffoli and Cármen Lúcia.

As for the general secretary of the CNJ, the nominee will be Adriana Cruz, a career judge who has already had her name quoted for a vacancy on the STF at other times.