A JACUZZI IN THE CENTRAL PLATEAU

The Supreme Court of Brazil has transformed in a barter counter between godmothers

By: Linaldo Guimarães

The image of a jacuzzi with hot, murky water, lots of foam, and a collective party among peers, beyond media exposure, serves as a warning when the public debate identifies signs that judicial results are being defined before the trial.

The point examined here is precise: it is alleged that certain judges have shown, through acts or statements, a predisposition to an outcome, reducing the space for collegial deliberation. It is also alleged that a minister, upon identifying procedural illegalities and poorly individualized accusations, resisted, recorded a dissenting vote, and sought to correct the course of the process.

If these allegations are confirmed, there is an offense to the pillars of the Rule of Law: due process (CF, art. 5, LIV), adversarial proceedings and ample defense (CF, art. 5, LV), presumption of innocence (CF, art. 5, LVII), motivation of decisions (CF, art. 93, IX), and judicial impartiality (LOMAN, art. 35; CPP, Art. 252 to 254). Concrete signs of pre-judgment include anticipatory statements about the merits on Globo News, undue restriction on the defense (Volume of accusations and time for defense analysis), bypassing of procedural rules (Acceleration of the process), stereotyped reasoning, and ex parte communications.

The minister who rises up must act: raise a point of order to the President of the Court, point out nullities, argue suspicion/impediment when there is a legal cause, grant habeas corpus ex officio in the face of flagrant illegality, and offer a reasoned dissenting vote that addresses evidence and theses. These measures are not a political gesture; they are a functional duty to preserve the integrity of the judgment.

It is well known that more than half of the Brazilian population lives in a state of alarm, experiencing a violation of their minimal capacity to see the facts as they truly are. It is observed daily by the press organs aligned with the current government's wishes, statements that clearly expose that the sentence is already known before the trial.

In this hypothesis, the dissent of Minister Luiz Fux, who points out illegalities and improprieties, cannot be seen as insubordination; it is the fulfillment of the duty to guard the Constitution, due process, and the democratic legitimacy of decisions. Judgments by the plenary, to be fair, require open deliberation, rigorous motivation, and concrete evidence, not suppositions or prior alignments, and the credibility of the system depends on this.

Judgments must be constructed, not announced. If there are "certain sentences" before the evidence and deliberation, what is established is not justice; it is a jacuzzi that scalds public trust. And this trust, once lost, costs much more than any occasional result.

Recalling the episode of the Twin Towers attack in New York on this same date, it remains to be seen what is left of the pillars of democracy after the exposure of the prosecution's slips in what can be said to be a barter counter between godmothers, into which the Supreme Court of a Nation has transformed.

Linaldo Guimarães Pimentel is an economist and political essayist. He is a researcher and member of the International Institute for Counterterrorism and a graduate of the ICT – Lauder School of Government Diplomacy and Strategy / Reichman University / Israel.