The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), Edson Fachin, removed from the docket on Thursday (17) the review of Justice André Mendonça's conduct in investigations tied to the Banco Master case. The session had been scheduled for September 23. On the same day, Fachin canceled an extraordinary plenary session.
Both decisions came amid an escalating internal crisis at the court, after a week of public clashes between justices. The dispatch sets no new date. Fachin wrote that pending disputes, including how the cases should proceed and who should serve as reporting justice, bear directly on the review.
"Considering the direct relation of the points in the Question of Order above to the review of these records, including challenges to the regularity of the reporting justice itself, the listing on the docket will be rescheduled in due course," Fachin wrote.
Vote frozen by a review request
The removal came two days after a chaotic session. On Tuesday (15), the justices debated how to handle the Master case proceedings. The vote stopped when Justice Flávio Dino asked for "vista", a Brazilian court procedure that gives a justice up to 90 days to study the case. The score stood at 4 votes to 3 in favor of keeping the reviews of Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Mendonça separate, according to G1. Justices close to Moraes wanted the two cases joined; Fachin rejected that.
The Moraes case reached the plenary after a Federal Police report requested by Mendonça, according to Folha de S.Paulo. The document describes Moraes as an interlocutor of Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the defunct Banco Master and accused of financial fraud. According to G1, the report cites messages between the two, in-person meetings and a 130 million reais contract between the bank and the office of Moraes's wife. Mendonça lifted the secrecy of the document, and Moraes accused him of a "selective" release.
Clash in the open
The cancellation of the extraordinary session came hours after a new public clash between Justices Gilmar Mendes and André Mendonça. Gilmar published a statement defending Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, accused his colleague of acting with "political-electoral" goals and called him an "electoral pixuleco", an insult in Portuguese. Mendonça answered in a note, denied tolerating leaks and said he never turned "the plenary into a pulpit or circus ring".
What comes next: the review of Mendonça's conduct has no date. The case procedure remains open until Dino returns the file, within his 90-day window, and Fachin said the docket listing "will be rescheduled in due course". The court gave no new date.