Justice Gilmar Mendes of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) has formally questioned how the court's Second Chamber, a five-justice panel, handled the virtual session that upheld, on September 8, the removal of Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues and the force's intelligence chief, Leandro Almada. In a memo sent to the chamber's president, Justice Luiz Fux, on September 11 and made public on Thursday (17), Gilmar argues there was a "prior arrangement" between Fux and the reporting justice, André Mendonça, without advance notice to the other members.
What the memo says
Gilmar, the court's most senior justice, wrote that the timeline in the court's internal systems shows that the extraordinary virtual session was designated through a direct understanding between Fux and the reporting justice, "without prior notice to part of the members of the panel". The court's rules, he argued, define the chamber as a body of five justices whose president coordinates the work "through dialogue with all members, without leaning toward any of them". In his assessment, convening the session that way conflicted with the principle of collegiality and with institutional loyalty among the justices.
"I am not writing this memo out of attachment to formalities, nor out of disagreement with the panel. I am writing it because I consider it indispensable to preserve the institution we belong to."
The hours cited in the document show how fast it moved. Mendonça's individual decision was logged at 8:43 a.m. on September 8; at 9:29 the case was placed on the agenda; at 9:38 Gilmar's office was told of an extraordinary virtual session at 10 a.m. Gilmar asked for more time to review the case right at the opening. At 10:04, Fux cast his vote siding with the reporting justice, and at 10:06 Justice Kassio Nunes Marques did the same. In barely more than an hour, according to CartaCapital, the decision removing two Federal Police commanders had been issued, published, scheduled and put to a vote.
The next day, Justice Flávio Dino struck down the removal and reinstated Andrei Rodrigues, Metrópoles reported. The dispute is part of the crisis opened by the Banco Master investigation, which examines suspected billion-real frauds and the contacts of the collapsed bank's owner, Daniel Vorcaro, now jailed, with justices of the court itself. The removal of the Federal Police command and messages between Vorcaro and Justice Alexandre de Moraes, flagged in a police report, sit at the center of the justices' public battles. The Federal Police is Brazil's federal investigative force, and its director-general answers directly to the Justice Ministry.
What comes next
Gilmar's criticism carried into the September 15 session, in which the full court debated how to proceed on the inquiry into the Vorcaro-Moraes messages. That vote split 4 to 3 in favor of separating the cases, and Dino asked for an extension, with up to 90 days to return the matter to the bench, Metrópoles reported. On Thursday, STF President Edson Fachin pulled from the agenda the September 23 session that would have examined Mendonça's conduct, writing that it "will be rescheduled in due course". Fachin also canceled an extraordinary plenary session after the public clash between Gilmar and Mendonça.