Brazil's national association of Federal Police delegates has asked Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet to recuse himself from proceedings in the Banco Master case in which he is named. In a statement released on Saturday (5), the group, known as ADPF and representing more than 2,300 delegates according to Folha de S.Paulo, also asked that the review opened by the Prosecutor General's office (PGR) into the force's conduct be shelved.
Gonet told Supreme Federal Court (STF) President Edson Fachin on Friday night (4) that he had opened an external control procedure, a constitutional tool the prosecution uses to oversee police work. The review examines whether there was an outside order or interference in the drafting of a Federal Police report requested by Justice André Mendonça, who was then the case's rapporteur. The report pointed to contacts between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and banker Daniel Vorcaro, and it also names Gonet himself.
What the delegates want
"The ADPF requires that the Prosecutor General of the Republic recuse himself and abstain from performing any act, whether as custodian of the law or as head of external control, in proceedings related to the facts in which he is cited; that the procedure that was opened be archived as an inadequate route to question an act of the STF; and that the facts surfaced by Operation Compliance Zero be investigated in full, with no selectivity regarding the authorities involved"
The legal argument relies on Brazil's Code of Criminal Procedure. "Article 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure extends to the bodies of the prosecution the rules on judges' impediment and suspicion, for the same reason that no one may decide a cause of their own," the statement says.
The delegates who wrote the report, the association says, carried out a court order "within the strict limits set in it", with no room for their own judgment on its merits. External control of police activity, the ADPF argues, "is not disciplinary power over delegates and agents, and is not a review body for court decisions". The group said the move has an objectively intimidating effect on investigators, "regardless of any judgment about intentions, which the ADPF does not offer".
The PGR's case
The Prosecutor General's office said it had not been informed of Mendonça's order. "The decision issued in Petition No. 15,556/DF was concealed from the prosecution, which was thus prevented from carrying out the necessary external control of police activity," the PGR said, according to news site G1. The Federal Police will have to clarify "the possible occurrence of an external order or interference in its drafting, that may have tainted its content".
Gonet told Fachin he had ordered the procedure and that its result will be reported to the court "in due time". He had already said the investigation was void because it could not have been carried out without a request from the prosecution or the Federal Police itself, G1 reported.
The case left Mendonça's docket and now sits with Fachin, who had asked Gonet for information. In the Sept. 1 ruling that lifted the secrecy of the report, Mendonça suggested the material be assessed by the full court. The ADPF's request now awaits Gonet's decision on his own recusal.