The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin, has begun consulting his fellow justices on personally taking over the Master case, which currently sits with Justice André Mendonça. The move was first reported by Valor Econômico, a Brazilian business daily, which said court members confirmed the president's consultations.
Two options are under study, according to Valor. In the first, Fachin would take the full rapporteurship of the inquiry into fraud at Banco Master, one of Brazil's largest private banks. That requires approval by the full bench, because the court's internal rules do not allow the president to take a case away from a sitting rapporteur. In the second, Fachin would keep for himself, in a separate proceeding, only the portion of the investigation that names Justice Alexandre de Moraes and four other justices in Federal Police reports.
A second internal deal
If confirmed, it would be the second change of rapporteur in the Master inquiry. The first, drawn by lot, was Justice Dias Toffoli. He resigned in February after reports that his family had sold shares in the Tayayá resort, in the state of Paraná, to a fund linked to Master. His resignation came out of a closed-door deal among all the justices. In a note, the STF presidency said that, "given the high institutional interests" at stake, the case would be redistributed, and a new lottery handed it to Mendonça.
For Fachin to become rapporteur, Mendonça would also have to resign, and the bench would have to endorse the move. Valor reports that a new internal agreement is being sought to break the impasse.
A crisis with deadlines
The consultations come at the height of the confrontation between Moraes and Mendonça. On Tuesday, Mendonça unsealed a Federal Police report containing messages from Master founder Daniel Vorcaro to Moraes, including one in which the former banker asks whether it was time to leave Brazil. On Thursday, Moraes asked that Mendonça be investigated for alleged abuse of authority, administrative improbity and crime of responsibility. On Friday, Fachin pulled that request out of the fake news inquiry, where Moraes is rapporteur, to run as a separate proceeding under the court's presidency.
According to Folha de S.Paulo, the wing of the court that backs Moraes wants Fachin to temporarily remove Mendonça from the Master and INSS, Brazil's social security institute, investigations. People close to Mendonça defend the integrity of the inquiries and of the justice's conduct. Fachin said on Friday that the response to the crisis will be "firm, proportional and rigorous". In a speech at the Planalto palace, quoted by G1, he said that "recent events demonstrate the correctness and urgency of three goals of our administration: the adoption of a Code of Ethics, the end of the fake news inquiry and the modernization of the justice system".
The next steps have set deadlines. Fachin gave the Prosecutor General's office five days to weigh in on the request to investigate Moraes and, after that, five more days for Mendonça to respond. Contacted through his press office, the STF president did not reply to Valor.