Senators criticize Barroso’s political engagement for declaring that he fought against Bolsonaro

Opposition senators criticized this Thursday (13) the statements of political content by Minister Luis Roberto Barroso, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), made at the 59th Congress of the National Union of Students (UNE), held on Wednesday ( 12) in Brasilia.

For them, by stating in a speech that the country “defeated Bolsonarism”, the magistrate assumed a partial, engaged and inappropriate posture for his role.

“Apparently the PT had more allies than we imagined”, teased the leader of the opposition in the senate, Rogério Marinho (PL-RN).

In the same vein, Senator Jorge Seif (PL-SC), underlined that Barroso’s various speeches at the event denote, “in addition to partisanship, activism and fearlessness”.

“There is no respect from the minister for society, there is no sign that he seeks political pacification in the country and, furthermore, proves what many of us senators have insisted on: Brazil is witnessing judicial hypertrophy, a State of exception and a violation of the separation of powers,” he told People’s Gazette.

The senator from Santa Catarina recalled that there are a series of requests for hearings and even for impeachment filed in the Senate against STF ministers, including Barroso. The issue, he pointed out, is the need for the Board of Directors of the House, particularly its president, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), to put these requirements on the agenda for the group of senators to decide.

“Otherwise, everything is nothing more than mere propositions that lie in drawers”, he added.

Senator Luiz Carlos Heinze (PP-RS) said that the minister went public to make a confession, making the judiciary’s politicization even more visible. For him, the phrase “we defeated Bolsonarism” is the pearl of the day, which is added to others by Barroso, such as the well-known “perdeu, mané”.

“How long will the Senate keep my requests for impeachment of this minister on file?”, he protested.

The Constitution reserves for the Senate the role of supervisor and punitive instance of the acts of the ministers of the superior courts and of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), however, none of the hundreds of impediment proposals presented by citizens was even brought to pass. plenary. The volume has grown exponentially in recent years, accompanying the phenomenon known as judicial activism.

In addition to criticism from senators, opposition deputies also came out in protest against Luis Roberto Barroso’s speeches. The parliamentarians are working together to present an impeachment request against the magistrate, claiming that he committed the crime of “exercising party-political activity”.

Barroso has already spoken out against Bolsonarism on several occasions, including interviews and public events. In June 2022, while at Harvard to give a lecture at the Kennedy School, he was harassed by a man in the US, who called him a “devil” and a “little velvet mouth”.

In November 2022, after the victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the elections, the minister of the STF was approached by a demonstrator in New York, who questioned the reliability of electronic voting machines. Barroso responded with “Perdeu, mané”, the attitude that resulted in an impeachment request filed by a group of senators.