Gilmar Mendes, the longest-serving justice on Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), said on Saturday, September 26, that Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet suffered "consummated reputational damage" in the way the Master case was handled. In a post on X, Mendes said the ruling issued on Friday, September 25, by the Higher Council of the Federal Prosecution Service (CSMPF), an oversight body within the prosecutors' office, confirmed that there was nothing preventing Gonet from continuing to act in cases related to Banco Master, and he called for the STF to adopt a "judge of guarantees" for its own investigations.
On Friday the CSMPF rejected a request to investigate Gonet over an alleged relationship with Daniel Vorcaro and kept the prosecutor-general in charge of the Banco Master investigations, according to news site R7. Veja magazine reports that the criticism is aimed at Justice André Mendonça, the former rapporteur of the Master case at the STF. According to the court's senior justice, the rapporteur had already acknowledged in plenary how weak the insinuations were, but only after the secrecy covering the messages had been lifted and the headlines had circulated.
"The secrecy had already been lifted and the headlines had already circulated. The reputational damage was already done. What remains is an unfiltered picture of selective leaks, in an investigation that, curiously, gained traction as the electoral cycle advanced."
To Mendes, the council's ruling amounted to a "timid and convenient repair for those who caused the damage, but useless to those who carry its consequences". "Too late, and with a disconcerting calm before which I did not stay silent," he added, as reported by Veja. He also questioned the timing of the end of the secrecy order, in the middle of Brazil's election campaign, saying the exposure subjected "the reputation of an honest man to low blows on social media" before it was recognized that nothing serious was in those conversations. None of the outlets consulted reported a public response from Mendonça.
In the same post, Mendes recalled the precautionary suspension of Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues, which according to Veja was ordered by Mendonça in an individual ruling and quickly reversed. The justice called the measure "disproportionate and of unpredictable effects", R7 reported, and tied the two episodes together: "They are different episodes, but they shed light on the same problem. Individual decisions of enormous reach, taken in haste at the investigation stage, whose effects on reputations and on institutions are irreparable."
A judge of guarantees for the Supreme Court
Created in 2019 by the anti-crime package, the "judge of guarantees" splits the roles of investigating and judging: one magistrate controls the legality of the investigation and authorizes searches, arrests and seizures of records, while another runs the trial and delivers the verdict. In 2023 the STF declared the mechanism constitutional and made its adoption mandatory for all Brazilian courts, a rule that does not reach the court itself. After the recent episodes, Mendes argued for extending the model to the STF to limit the concentration of power in a single rapporteur during investigations.
According to CNN Brasil, Mendes belongs to the group of justices aligned with Alexandre de Moraes that has most sharply criticized Mendonça's conduct; the two clashed during the plenary session that examined the possible opening of an investigation against Moraes over messages exchanged with Vorcaro. For now, the Banco Master investigations remain under Gonet's command, and no date has been set for the full court to revisit the debate on a judge of guarantees at the STF.