Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) recused himself on Monday, September 21, from acting as rapporteur in a case that asks the Senate to release visitor entry and exit records, including those of his wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes, and former banker Daniel Vorcaro. G1 reported the decision.
Moraes had been assigned the case by the court's random distribution system. In his order, he cited Brazil's Code of Civil Procedure, which bars a judge from hearing a case in which a spouse is a party. The case files now go to the STF presidency for reassignment to another justice.
The request and the case's path
The lawsuit was filed by Guilherme Kilter, a Curitiba city councilman running for a federal deputy seat with the Novo party. According to CartaCapital, he wants the entry and exit times of eight people who visited the Senate between 2019 and 2026. Besides the justice's wife and Vorcaro, the request covers Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, a son of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, nicknamed Careca do INSS. G1 reports the request also includes José Ferreira da Silva, known as Frei Chico, Lula's brother.
The road to the STF was long. Kilter first sought the data under Brazil's freedom of information law, and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre denied the request, citing personal data protection. Kilter then sued in federal court in Paraná state. Judge Thais Sampaio da Silva Machado ruled the court had no jurisdiction, because the respondent, Alcolumbre, can be tried only by the STF. In the filing, Kilter calls the refusal unlawful and unsupported by the freedom of information law and the data protection law known as LGPD, and says the Senate violates the citizen's clear and certain right of access to information. He argues the records are needed to monitor meetings in the Senate.
The Master case
The lawsuit reaches the STF amid the crisis around the Banco Master affair. According to CartaCapital, messages taken from Vorcaro's phone mention Moraes and his wife, a partner at the Barci de Moraes law firm, and suggest the couple may have benefited from favors from the then banker while the firm provided compliance services to Banco Master. The STF plenary has yet to review the Federal Police report on the exchanges between Vorcaro and Moraes.
Next step: the STF presidency will reassign the case by lottery to another justice, who will decide whether to order the Senate to hand over the visitor records.