President of the OAB contests Moraes’ order – 02/16/2024 – Power

Waiting for clarification from Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), regarding the decision that prohibited communication between those investigated in Operation Tempus Veritatis “including through lawyers”, the president of the OAB, Beto Simonetti, states that the defenses They cannot be confused with their customers.

The operation, launched on the 8th, investigates an attempted coup d’état by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and allies to keep him in power before and after the election defeat to Lula (PT).

In his decisions, Moraes restricted communication between lawyers, which outraged representatives of the class and made the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association) ask the minister to review the measure. The entity understands that the decision violates the prerogatives of the legal profession.

Simonetti told Sheet this Thursday (15) that two excerpts from the minister’s decision caught the attention of the OAB.

The first was the limit imposed on communications from the lawyers of those being investigated, which he considers “in disagreement with the legislation and the prerogatives of the legal profession.” “Lawyers cannot be confused with their clients,” he says.

“Minister Alexandre de Moraes has welcomed the OAB’s notes regarding prerogatives, which are part of the protection of individual rights and guarantees, including when related to lawyers for January 8th defendants. The expectation is that our request to review this specific section of the decision is also accepted.”

The second point that surprised the entity, according to Simonetti, were mentions of the OAB made by Bolsonaro at the coup-oriented meeting in July 2022, whose speeches were reproduced in Moraes’ decision.

At the time, Bolsonaro stated that the federal government bodies that were part of the Elections Transparency Commission created by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) should produce a joint document stating that the fairness of the elections, at that time, was impossible to achieve.

Bolsonaro said he would ask the OAB to sign this document. “The OAB will give us credibility, okay?”, stated the then President of the Republic.

Simonetti refutes Bolsonaro’s statements and says he reiterated to Moraes “the OAB’s confidence in the electoral system and electronic voting machines.”

“Anyone who follows the OAB or searches on Google will see that our actions were aimed at rejecting fanciful theories about the ballot boxes and affirming the pride that the electronic system represents for Brazil. We were, in fact, the first civil institution to recognize the electoral result of 2022,” he says.

“It is also necessary to make it clear that former president Jair Bolsonaro and his interlocutors never approached the OAB to ask for support for unfounded criticisms of the electoral system. If anyone asked for support from the OAB for this issue, they would receive a no answer,” he states. the president of the entity.

Among lawyers, there is a discussion regarding the scope of Moraes’ decision on the restriction on defenses.

In an article on the Conjur website, criminalist Fernando Fernandes interprets that there is no veto for lawyers to communicate, but only the impediment to those being investigated “from talking in any way with the other being investigated, including the possibility of exchanging messages through their lawyers “.

But this was not the understanding of most lawyers. The São Paulo section of the OAB, the largest in Brazil, classified the measure as a “ban on communication between lawyers imposed by a STF minister.”

“This decision seems entirely wrong to me,” said the president of OAB-SP, Patrícia Vanzolini, on social media. “This in practice means prohibiting the lawyers themselves from having contact with each other.”

According to Simonetti, OAB Nacional received demands related to the decision limiting communications and immediately prepared the petition that was presented to the STF.

“Whenever we identify something that could harm prerogatives, we expose our concerns to the STF through petitions and respectful institutional dialogue”, states the entity’s president.

In the second half of last year, entities such as the OAB and the Public Defender’s Office disagreed with Moraes due to the minister’s refusal to respond to requests that they consider fundamental for the broad defense of their representatives.

One of these complaints was the use of the virtual plenary instead of in-person demonstrations by lawyers.

For the president of the OAB, the current expectation is that Moraes “changes the specific section of the decision in which a limit to communications between lawyers of those investigated in the operation was determined.”

“The OAB has an obligation to safeguard the prerogatives of colleagues who defend those being investigated in Operation Tempus Veritatis and in any investigation”, says Simonetti.

He states that since he took office as head of the entity, in February 2022, there have been “different types of incidents” and that the Order had to defend Cristiano Zanin (who defended Lula and is now a Supreme Court minister) to Frederic Wassef (lawyer of Bolsonaro).

“The OAB looks at professional prerogatives, not who the lawyer represents, or whether the client is left, center or right, whether he is guilty or innocent, famous or unknown”, he states.