A group of about 50 business leaders, economists and jurists is preparing a public letter of support for Edson Fachin, president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), according to Folha de S.Paulo. The group held its first meeting by private video call late on Wednesday (Sept 9) to discuss proposals to reform and strengthen the judiciary. The letter was proposed by former justice minister Miguel Reale Jr. at the end of the call, and the text still needs the participants' approval.
Who is in the group
The call brought together figures from finance, industry and law, among them Arminio Fraga, a former president of the Central Bank; Pedro Malan, a former finance minister; André Lara Resende, a former president of the BNDES development bank; Pedro Passos, of cosmetics group Natura; Jackson Schneider, former CEO of Embraer Defense and Security; and two former presidents of Fiesp, Sao Paulo state's industry federation, Horácio Lafer Piva and Josué Gomes. The jurist Oscar Vilhena, who heads the FGV law school in Sao Paulo, and criminal lawyer Patrícia Vanzolini also took part, along with other names from academia and civil society.
The group first came together in 2022 to defend democracy and the court from coup-minded attacks. That year it produced a letter signed by thousands of people and by business and labor groups, read at the University of Sao Paulo law school. Folha reports that the revival began when Josué Gomes approached Oscar Vilhena, a columnist for the paper, as the current crisis escalated.
What is at stake on Sept 15
The crisis began with a Federal Police report pointing to 52 messages exchanged between former banker Daniel Vorcaro and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Vorcaro is jailed under Operation Compliance Zero, which investigates fraud at Banco Master and an alleged monitoring and influence network with the potential to infiltrate the highest levels of the state, according to G1. Fachin has called the full court for Sept 15, when the justices decide whether to open an investigation into Moraes. G1 reports that six votes look settled, while those of Fachin and Cármen Lúcia remain uncertain.
Almost at the same time as the business call on Wednesday, Fachin removed Moraes as rapporteur of the fake news inquiry, which the justice had run for more than seven years, and suspended clashing rulings by André Mendonça and Flávio Dino over control of the Federal Police, keeping Andrei Rodrigues as director general. Aides told the news site SpaceMoney that signatories of earlier public letters and notes, who had demanded transparency and an end to the crisis, called in solidarity. One of them said the court must confront the facts, which he described as extremely serious, and cannot limit itself to debating whether Mendonça overstepped in requesting the investigation of Moraes.
For companies, the signatories speak for sectors that depend on stable rulings from the judiciary, from Sao Paulo industry to cosmetics and the defense supply chain, and their demand repeats the earlier public notes: an end to the crisis and clarity on everything under investigation. For citizens, the deadline is near: on Tuesday (Sept 15) the full court decides, as a body, whether the messages between Vorcaro and Moraes become a formal investigation inside the court itself.