Justice Gilmar Mendes, the longest-serving member of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), asked the court's president, Edson Fachin, on Friday (11) to take personal charge of the case built on a Federal Police report that logged messages between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and the jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro. In a formal letter, Gilmar argued that the full court should review that report together with another document that raises suspicions against Justice André Mendonça, the justice overseeing the Banco Master case. According to Folha de S.Paulo, he also suggested postponing the session set for Tuesday (15).
Gilmar criticized the split handling of cases built on the same facts. "The fragmentation of proceedings resting on common factual grounds, in addition to hindering the court's understanding of the overall picture, can produce exactly what the rules of connection seek to avoid: irreconcilable decisions and procedural disorder," he wrote.
"The moment demands, above all, unity of conduct, clarity on the object of the judgment and strict observance of the procedural guarantees of everyone involved."
Pressure on Fachin before the session
Fachin summoned the full court to discuss the Federal Police report on Tuesday (15). The document pointed to a possible relationship between Moraes and Vorcaro, the founder of Banco Master, the bank at the center of the investigation. Moraes himself sent Fachin a letter on Friday asking that two pending petitions be judged together: one covering his messages with Vorcaro, and one collecting reports alleging a breach of impartiality, administrative improbity, crimes of responsibility and abuse of authority by Mendonça in the operations "Sem Desconto" and "Compliance Zero".
How the crisis began
The dispute among the justices grew out of the Banco Master investigations. On September 1, Mendonça lifted the secrecy on a proceeding that contained a chapter of the Federal Police report listing 52 messages sent by Vorcaro to Moraes. The justice's replies do not appear in the material, which was produced from data extracted from the banker's phone. Two days later, Moraes asked Fachin to open an investigation into Mendonça, citing suspected administrative improbity, abuse of authority and a crime of responsibility in his handling of the Master and INSS cases.
The Attorney General's Office, under Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, had already called for the investigation ordered by Mendonça to be declared void. Fachin must now decide whether to accept the joint-review requests and whether to keep Tuesday's session, when the justices are expected to set the procedure for debating the report.