Justices Gilmar Mendes and André Mendonça of Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) traded shouts on Tuesday (15) in the court's chamber in Brasília. The clash came during an extraordinary session on the Banco Master crisis engulfing the court, and began when Gilmar rose to defend Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet and accused his colleague of "desfaçatez", shameless audacity, and "leviandade", recklessness.
Gonet had just denied any closeness to Daniel Vorcaro, the former owner of Banco Master. "There is no such thing, and I never had a relationship of proximity with Mr. Vorcaro", the prosecutor said, according to news site G1. Mendonça asked to respond. Gilmar cut him off and shouted: "The shamelessness of this man is astonishing!"
"It is astonishing, Mr. President, that a person of Mr. Paulo Gonet's stature should suffer this kind of insinuation. That is what recklessness is. A man gripped by a police-minded zeal together with his police commissioners. The shamelessness of this man is astonishing."
Mendonça shouted back. "The shamelessness is yours, Your Excellency! Respect me, respect me. This is no joke!", he yelled. Gilmar replied: "Go ahead and cry, go ahead and cry." Mendonça answered: "I am not crying. There is no crying here. Respect me!"
Justice Flávio Dino halted the session, asked for a "vista", the procedural step in which a justice requests the case files for review, and demanded action from court president Luiz Edson Fachin over the shouting match. "I have to interrupt this situation because we have a point of order. We are in no condition to deliberate. The climate is going from bad to worse, and society is watching something different from the procedure the law mandates", he said.
A crisis that already involved Moraes
The fight opened a new front in the dispute between Mendonça and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The crisis deepened after Mendonça, the justice in charge of the Banco Master investigations, lifted secrecy on Federal Police reports. One document listed 52 messages between Vorcaro and Moraes, in-person meetings between the two, and a R$ 130 million contract between the bank and the law firm of Moraes's wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes. Moraes accused his colleague of a "selective" release of the case files. Mendonça denied it and said he kept confidential only what was needed to protect ongoing investigations and third-party data.
The session produced one more confrontation. Dino mentioned messages about court justices found on Vorcaro's phone, and Justice Luiz Fux reacted: "There are no messages with me." Dino insisted: "There are, Justice Fux. There are." Fux said he had never seen Vorcaro in his life, and Dino answered that his colleague "will have to clarify this at the proper time. Unfortunately".
What comes next
The session ended suspended, with a partial 4-3 tally in favor of keeping the cases of Moraes and Mendonça separate. Fachin, Cármen Lúcia, Luiz Fux and André Mendonça voted against the joint review sought by Gilmar; Gilmar, Cristiano Zanin and Alexandre de Moraes voted for it, according to InfoMoney. Dino had sided with that group but converted his vote into a request for review, suspending the judgment. The court resumes the case next week. The case against Mendonça is scheduled for September 23, and the review period can run up to 90 days. Justices Dias Toffoli and Kassio Nunes Marques had stepped aside, one citing personal reasons and the other the electoral calendar, leaving seven justices to vote.