A group of former cabinet ministers from the governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, joined by jurists, economists and business leaders, sent a letter of support to Edson Fachin on Sunday (13). Fachin is the president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the country's top court. The manifesto has 198 signatures, according to G1; Poder360 counts 199. It backs the steps Fachin has taken in the court's institutional crisis and demands that Tuesday's (15) plenary session be held in public.
The signatories call the moment "the most serious crisis in the history of the Supreme Federal Tribunal and certainly one of the most serious in our turbulent republican history". The letter asks for "broad transparency in the investigations and in the plenary session" set for Tuesday, which it says must be public under Article 93, item IX, of the Brazilian Constitution.
"Investigating the facts and holding accountable those who may have violated the law and the dignity of their offices are indispensable if we are to regain trust in our institutions and preserve our democracy," the document reads.
According to Poder360, the signatories include former Finance Minister Pedro Malan and former chief of staff Pedro Parente, both from the Cardoso government, former Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo, who served under Rousseff, and former human rights minister Paulo Vannuchi, from the Lula government. Two former central bank presidents, Armínio Fraga and Pérsio Arida, the economists Edmar Bacha and André Lara Resende, former Itaú Unibanco chief Candido Bracher and former Suzano CEO Walter Schalka also signed.
The letter also calls for urgent institutional reforms at the court, to "strengthen collegiality, ensure the impartiality of trials, prevent conflicts of interest, establish rigorous standards of conduct and broaden transparency". In its sharpest passage, the group writes: "The Supreme Federal Tribunal cannot allow its jurisdiction to be captured by illicit interests of a personal, political or economic nature".
Background: how the crisis began
The crisis escalated in early September, when Justice André Mendonça lifted the seal on a Federal Police report produced in the investigation into Banco Master. The document revealed messages and contacts between the former banker Daniel Vorcaro and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes then asked for Mendonça to be investigated for alleged abuse of authority. The standoff led Mendonça to remove Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues, a decision reversed by Justice Flávio Dino and then suspended by Fachin pending a plenary review.
Fachin has since centralized crisis-related decisions in the court's presidency, removed Moraes from the fake news inquiry and ruled that any proceedings targeting justices must first go through his office. On Tuesday (15), the full court is set to weigh the Federal Police report linking Moraes to Vorcaro and a request from the Prosecutor General's Office to void it. Poder360 reports the session will be broadcast live. That openness is what the letter's signatories want guaranteed.