The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin, on Saturday (12) denied a request from the court's longest-serving justice, Gilmar Mendes, and kept only the investigation into Justice Alexandre de Moraes on the agenda of Tuesday's (15) special session. In the same ruling, Fachin set Sept. 23 to review questions about the conduct of Justice André Mendonça in the Master and INSS cases.
According to Folha de S.Paulo, Fachin wrote in the ruling that keeping only the Moraes case on the docket allows the court to define precisely what it will decide:
"[The measure] ensures the precise delimitation of the object of this Court's deliberation, enabling the review of a matter whose adversarial process and preliminary clarification will already have been completed."
Why Fachin split the cases
Gilmar had asked, in a formal letter, that the report against Mendonça also be placed on the agenda and that the session be postponed. Fachin refused both. According to the news site G1, the court president explained that the two cases are at different stages: the material on Moraes was ready and cleared for judgment, while the Mendonça case still has open deadlines for gathering information and formal filings. Bringing the second case to the full bench early, Fachin concluded, would make the review unworkable.
Moraes lost as well. He had asked the STF presidency to have the two cases decided together, citing, per G1, a "concrete risk of contradictory decisions and procedural turmoil." Fachin rejected the request.
What started the crisis
The standoff began with messages that former banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, allegedly sent to Moraes. They were revealed by the newspaper Estadão, and Folha said it also had access to them. In the days before his arrest by the Federal Police in Operation Compliance Zero, Vorcaro asked the justice for information about the investigation, arranged meetings with him and asked whether he should flee the country. The Federal Police report cites more than 50 messages from the banker to the justice, according to G1.
The exchange was recorded in a Federal Police report requested by Mendonça, who also made it public. The material mentions Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues and Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet. Moraes hit back: relying on a Federal Police intelligence report pointing to supposedly improper methods by Mendonça, he asked that his colleague be investigated for abuse of authority. Fachin then ordered the report against Moraes to the full court and put it on Tuesday's agenda. That session examines the Moraes investigation; on Sept. 23, the court takes up the questions about Mendonça.