President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Thursday (17) that Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) should try the cases involving justices Alexandre de Moraes and André Mendonça together, and demanded that information already gathered in the Master case be made public. Speaking to Rádio Itatiaia in Brasília, Lula, who is running for reelection this year, said the investigation into the Banco Master scandal is far from finished: "The Master case has not been unraveled."

"If you want justice in the vote, everyone has to be judged on the same day. We will find out whether the phone call is real, whether [Luiz] Fux is involved, whether [André] Mendonça is involved, whether the head of the TSE [the electoral court] is involved. You cannot judge one person before the election and the rest afterwards. Everyone now has the material; all that is left is to make it public."

According to G1, Lula said the court already holds the material needed to clarify the facts and that everyone named in the investigations must receive equal treatment. He defended Moraes's record in the cases tied to the attacks on Brazilian democracy, while saying any punishment would be for the court itself to decide: "If Alexandre de Moraes made a mistake, it is the Supreme Court's decision. If he was wrong, he will have to pay for what he did. But we want the same for everyone." Lula also again linked Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) to the scandal and said the lawmaker will have to answer the accusations.

What the court is examining

Lula's demand echoes a dispute already splitting the bench. According to BBC News Brasil, two separate proceedings are before the STF. Petition 16.662 contains a Federal Police report with messages exchanged between Moraes and former banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is named in the Master case investigations. Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet questions the report's validity and argues that Mendonça could not have asked the Federal Police to examine a fellow justice without prior approval from the full bench. Mendonça counters that he requested the review only to identify who received the messages found on Vorcaro's phone, and that he sent the case to his colleagues once Moraes was identified. Petition 16.704, filed by Moraes, gathers accusations against Mendonça backed by a Federal Police report Moraes himself requested, which points to allegedly irregular conduct by the colleague. According to Moraes, Mendonça acted illegally and with political bias in the Banco Master and INSS investigations, the latter linked to the federal social security institute. Neither justice is a defendant; the accusations are still at a preliminary review stage before the full court. This week brought two main developments:

• September 15: in a session on petition 16.662, Justice Gilmar Mendes filed a procedural motion asking that the Moraes and Mendonça cases be judged together. The vote stood at 4 to 3 for separate analysis when Justice Flávio Dino asked for a "vista", a request for more time that suspended the session.
• September 17: Dino said he had identified signs of a link between Vorcaro and a new cemetery concession and ordered the information sent to the Federal Police, which summoned Vorcaro and his father to testify, G1 reported. Mendonça denied any wrongdoing or political motivation, said he had expected reprisals and stated that he has "nothing to fear". Court president Edson Fachin removed the judgment on the accusations against Mendonça, set for September 23, from the docket, canceled the session and cited in an order the "direct relation" between the procedural motion and the case, including "questioning of the regularity of the rapporteurship itself".

What comes next

Dino has until December 15, a 90-day deadline under the court's rules for a vista request, to allow the vote to resume, and the return to the docket depends on Fachin, who wrote that the session "will be rescheduled in due course". Because the court goes into recess from December 20 to February 1, BBC News Brasil reports the cases may not be judged until next year, after the presidential election and the inauguration of the next president. Lula said the facts must be clarified transparently and that the court "must be respected": "If there is no respect, it becomes hard to believe it is the guardian of the Constitution. It is the only instance from which there is no appeal."