STF encourages denunciation under the pretext of protecting institutions

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) is encouraging complaints against citizens and parliamentarians using as a pretext the need to protect the members of the Court and State institutions. The trend intensified after the acts of January 8th and is manifested in posts on social networks and in the hasty inclusion of new investigated persons in the Supreme Court’s inquiries based on complaints.

On May 19, the STF tweeted encouraging users to denounce publications with “distorted or lying content” about the Court. “Spread the correct information! Do not share distorted or lying content about the STF. If you receive any false content, send it to the Supreme Disinformation Combat program, for the dissemination of true information”, read the post, which was deleted a few days later.

In recent months, the Supreme Court has also become a kind of ombudsman for politicians: requests have multiplied for the inclusion of opponents in the investigations conducted by the court. Inquiries such as the fake news and the acts of January 8 have become a repository of revanchism among politicians.

São Paulo councilor Fernando Holiday (Republicans), for example, began to be investigated as a possible instigator of the acts of January 8 following a March decision by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, in response to requests from the feminist caucus of the City Council, which has PSOL parliamentarians opposing Holiday. The day after the attacks in Brasília, PT and PSOL had also asked for the investigation of opposing deputies.

In March, the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, requested the inclusion of seven of his political opponents in the fake news inquiry, based on statements made after Dino’s visit to Complexo da Maré, in Rio de Janeiro. The following month, Dino asked for the inclusion of Deputy Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR) in the inquiry, claiming the same reason.

Right-wing parliamentarians have also used the STF as an ombudsman: Senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN) requested the inclusion of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the fake news inquiry for having insinuated that the police operation that discovered a plan to kidnapping of Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil) was a setup.

In May, a group of 20 right-wing deputies asked that Grupo Globo and Folha de S.Paulo be included in the fake news inquiry, claiming that the two companies have “repeatedly tried to manipulate public opinion and impact the vote of parliamentarians by publish texts that create a scenario of terror to justify the approval of the Fake News PL”.

“Without a doubt, this is not the role of the STF”, says constitutionalist lawyer André Marsiglia, a specialist in freedom of expression. “The role of the STF is not to encourage complaints, it is not to become Brazil’s ombudsman, just as it is not the role of inquiries to regulate public opinion. The STF seems to be expanding the role of its activism to the police. It’s part of the police job to receive a report, not from our Supreme Court’s tribunal.”

For Marsiglia, the STF is creating the “possibility of acting in a vindictive manner with opponents based on the complaint”. “We came to believe that denunciation is a way of dealing with problems. It corrupts the Judiciary in several ways. The STF, in order not to make hasty decisions, should always be the last one to make decisions. are made to the STF, it becomes the first to make the decisions, which, without a doubt, makes it very prone to rushing”, he observes.

The jurist also criticizes the receipt of mass denouncements, such as after the January 8 acts. “When you have 80,000 complaints, how can you properly investigate these 80,000? It is obvious that you cannot do that. If the STF says, on the networks, to report, it is obvious that it expects to receive more than one complaint or two. He expects to receive a gigantic volume. And receiving a huge volume of complaints makes it impossible to make any correct assessment.”

Lawyer Wallace Oliveira, a specialist in Digital and Procedural Law, says that encouraging excessive complaints “creates a state of inconsistency and chaos in the Brazilian legal system”. For him, there is “restriction to freedom of expression and communication of a portion of society” through “unfounded police reports, which aim to penalize innocent people for pure political and ideological revanchism”.

The STF inquiries, in his view, “inaugurated the precedent of a culture of denunciation in Brazil”. “Just as the STF is not responsible for initiating inquiries, it is not up to the institution to create denouncement channels for processing allegedly untrue facts”, explains Oliveira, recalling that these are functions of the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

STF is extrapolating judicial activism and creating “administrative activism”, says jurist

In the tweet that encourages the denunciation of “distorted or lying content”, the STF says that the initiative was created “to combat practices that affect people’s trust in the Court”.

For André Marsiglia, “the STF is stepping out of its role a lot, and that is, without a doubt, what affects confidence in the court”. “Confidence in the Court does not exist because of the fight against anything, but because of its ability to technically judge what arrives. A court serves to judge, and judgments have to be technical, never political. . It’s not about them becoming combatants for absolutely nothing, neither in trials nor administratively.”

Marsiglia says that the post requesting complaints is an example of how judicial activism has already contaminated even the Court’s support bodies, creating within the Supreme Court what he calls “administrative activism”.

“There is an idea that seems to be present today in the Court that it is responsible for a crusade against anti-democratic acts, against fake news, against misinformation, against hatred. This idea that the Supreme Court has a flag to be defended against certain harms seems to be spreading out of the courts – which has been around for a long time – and even reaching their posts on networks, their support bodies”, he comments.

Other examples of administrative activism, according to Marsiglia, are the Supreme Court’s recent “Unshaken Democracy” campaign and the excess of lectures given by magistrates in different places, in which they reiterate their views on topics such as hate speech, misinformation, fake news and democracy. .

“It’s as if society has delegated to them this prerogative to fight on its behalf regarding these issues. And they don’t have that prerogative. The only prerogative they have is to judge, and that’s a passive act, not an active one.” , says Marsiglia.

A People’s Gazette contacted the STF by email and telephone asking for clarification on the tweet that encouraged the use of the whistleblowing channel, but the organ of the Republic did not respond to the newspaper’s request.