The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin, on Thursday (3) ordered two justices, the prosecutor general and the head of the Federal Police to explain, within five business days, the events behind a crisis gripping the court. According to G1, the order requires Justices André Mendonça and Alexandre de Moraes, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet and Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues to submit the information.

What Fachin wants to know

Fachin asked for information on four points:

• whether the Federal Police followed the rules of the Loman, the statute that governs Brazil's judiciary, when dealing with officials who can be tried only by the STF;
• signs that institutional access credentials were used to examine a strictly private document, and that information under judicial seal was revealed to a person under investigation;
• the circumstances in which Mendonça ordered the identification of people named in the Master Bank investigation;
• and the steps taken to provide external control of police activity.

"It falls to the presidency of the court to ensure that any collective review is carried out, in due time and manner, with the high sense of responsibility the facts demand, always guaranteeing respect for the constitutional guarantees of due process, full defense and adversarial proceedings," Fachin wrote.

How the crisis began

The order responds to a crisis that broke on Tuesday (1), when Mendonça lifted the secrecy on a Federal Police report exposing messages and contacts between Master Bank founder Daniel Vorcaro and Justice Moraes. In the same ruling, Mendonça argued the material belongs before the full bench. "...the inevitable path of these proceedings leads to the plenary of this Supreme Federal Court, the sovereign body to analyze, in a technical and strictly legal manner, the new elements brought by the police authority," he wrote.

Gonet, who is mentioned in the reports Mendonça released, has said the investigation is void because it was carried out without a request from prosecutors or from the Federal Police itself. Fachin wrote that, alongside a later review of the possible procedural defects raised by the prosecutor general, the police findings, if confirmed, require the court presidency to "safeguard the prerogatives of the Tribunal," as set out in its internal rules.

Moraes struck back the same day. According to G1 and InfoMoney, he asked Fachin, within the fake news inquiry, to open an investigation of Mendonça on suspicion of administrative improbity, abuse of authority, crimes of responsibility and favoring political groups in his handling of the Master Bank and INSS cases. Moraes also said Mendonça steered the investigation toward targets "for personal and political reasons," naming Moraes himself and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre. Mendonça has not yet responded.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also spoke publicly for the first time since the report came out. "Our democracy cannot be held hostage to selective leaks," he said in a recorded statement at the presidential palace, as reported by Folha de S.Paulo. He added that "it is essential that everyone be investigated, with no one shielded."

The five-business-day clock is running. Once the answers arrive, Fachin must decide whether to take the matter to the full court, the body that would rule collectively on the conduct of the justices.