STF overturns censorship of film about ‘Lava Jato da Paraíba’ – 04/27/2023 – Politics

STF (Federal Supreme Court) Minister Edson Fachin overturned on Wednesday (26) censorship of the documentary “Contaminated Justice – The Lavajatista Theater of Operation Calvário in Paraíba”, released last year by journalists Eduardo Reina and Camilo Toscano.

The two are the target of lawsuits filed by Judge Ricardo Vital de Almeida, due to the documentary. In 2022, Judge Adhemar de Paula Leite Ferreira Néto, from the 3rd Entrance, ordered the removal of the video from the channels where it was released, at the risk of a fine of BRL 500 per day up to a limit of BRL 30,000.

The journalists’ defense filed a constitutional complaint with the STF, considering that the decision violates the court’s jurisprudence.

Fachin granted an injunction to the request. “The jurisprudence of this court has admitted, in a complaint based on the judgment of the ADPF [Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental ] 130, that the effectiveness be suspended or even judicial decisions that determine the non-publication of certain topics in journalistic articles be annulled”, he said.

The minister said that ADPF 130 recognized that freedom of the press is of greater importance for the country’s democracy. Fachin also says that “the synthetic reasoning adopted in the claimed act, formulated in summary cognition, aimed to avoid the propagation of the supposedly offensive content of the documentary without, however, discussing, albeit succinctly, about such content” .

In the documentary, it is mentioned that the judge Ricardo Vital de Almeida and the prosecutor Octávio Paulo Neto, from the Public Ministry (MP-PB), were called by the local press “Moro e Dallagnol da Paraíba”, in a comparison with the former judge and now Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil) and former prosecutor and now federal deputy Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos), who acted in Operation Lava Jato.

In the action, the judge maintains that the film contains “several words that are offensive to his image and his honor”.

He asks for payment of compensation for moral damages of 40 minimum wages, that journalists refrain from broadcasting any comment offensive to the magistrate’s image and that the broadcasting of the “illicit video” be suspended.

Judge Ferreira Néto rejected a request for journalists to refrain from offensive comments to the magistrate, on the grounds that it would be prior censorship. The merits of the main action have not yet been adjudicated.

According to the journalists’ lawyer, Jonatas Moreth Mariano, there are three lawsuits against the journalists in the Paraíba court. Two of them are for moral damages and a third is a court order, he said.

The documentary has a critical tone to what it classifies as car washes during Operation Calvário, launched in 2019, which appointed former Paraíba governor Ricardo Coutinho (former PSB, today in the PT) as the leader of a criminal organization that collected bribes in state contracts In the health area.

The former governor has said that the operation was a setup with political persecution.

Divided into several episodes, the documentary that motivated the legal dispute treats Operation Calvário as a case of lawfare, the use of law with the aim of persecuting a person or groups. In the documentary, there are reports of the use of the award-winning accusations in a similar way to Lava Jato.

In the action against the journalists, the magistrate claims to be portrayed as a “partial judge, authoritarian and adhering to conspiracies”.

Eduardo Reina told Sheet in March that he tried to contact the magistrate by email, via the press office, the head of the cabinet and even gave options for answering questions in writing.

The report sought the judge by email and message last month to comment on the case, but did not receive a response. At the end of the afternoon of this Thursday (27), the magistrate was again wanted by these channels.

For entities representing journalists, the action and censorship constitute legal persecution against Reina and Toscano.

“The entire lawsuit filed against Eduardo Reina and Camilo Toscano is, in fact, yet another absurd and unacceptable attempt to curtail journalistic activity”, says a note published by the Network for the Protection of Journalists and Communicators, led by the Vladimir Herzog Institute and by Artigo 19 .

During Operation Calvário, Ricardo Coutinho and other people were arrested in the action that investigated an alleged embezzlement of R$ 134.2 million from the state health area.

In early 2020, he was denounced in state court. In 2021, the defense obtained a decision by the STF to send the case to the Electoral Justice of Paraíba, on the grounds that the facts involved campaign funds.

However, the electoral court decided to return the process to the common courts, as it understood that the complaint did not specify electoral irregularities.

Last June, Minister Gilmar Mendes again declared the incompetence of the common Justice and reaffirmed the attribution of the Electoral Justice.