A state electoral court in southern Brazil has cleared Deltan Dallagnol, a former federal prosecutor and Lava Jato task force member, to run for the Senate this year. The Regional Electoral Court of Paraná (TRE-PR) voted 4 to 3 on the night of Tuesday, September 8, to approve his candidacy registration. Court president Luciano Carrasco Falavinha Souza cast the tie-breaking vote after roughly seven hours of deliberation, according to news site Revista Oeste.

The ruling rejected a challenge filed by the coalition of the Workers' Party (PT) and the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) in Paraná's race for state governor. The challenge argued that Dallagnol was ineligible because the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Brazil's top electoral court, revoked his federal congressional mandate in 2023. Rapporteur judge Vanessa Jamus Marchi voted to approve the registration. In her view, the proceedings over alleged infractions committed during his years as a federal prosecutor produced no sanctions capable of grounding an ineligibility ruling. "The situation has changed and no ineligibility is found," she said. The electoral prosecutors' office had also backed his eligibility.

Why his candidacy was challenged

Dallagnol was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2022 after gaining national prominence as a member of the Lava Jato task force in Curitiba, the Car Wash anti-corruption investigation. In May 2023, the TSE stripped him of the seat. The court found that his 2021 request to leave the federal prosecution service was meant to avoid the consequences of disciplinary proceedings then underway at the National Council of the Public Prosecutor's Office (CNMP), and applied the criteria of Brazil's "Ficha Limpa" clean-record law for prosecutors who leave office while facing a disciplinary case. His lawyers countered that the 2023 ruling did not expressly declare an eight-year ineligibility, and that part of the proceedings were later archived, expired under the statute of limitations, or closed without a sanction involving loss of office.

Alongside the rapporteur and the court president, judges Gisele Lemke and Osvaldo Canela Júnior voted to approve the registration. Judges Everton Jonir Fagundes Menengola, Fernando Antonio Prazeres and Nicole Trauczynski voted against it.

Fine over confidential files

At the end of the session, Falavinha Souza fined Dallagnol 100,000 reais for litigation in bad faith. The penalty came after his defense attached to the case confidential tax and banking records of Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin. The court president called the conduct reckless and said it offended the dignity of the justice system. "I sentence the candidate for litigation in bad faith in the amount of 100,000 reais," he said. According to broadcaster Band, Zanin formally asked the electoral court to remedy the irregularity and to hold those responsible accountable, including on criminal grounds. Dallagnol's lawyers said the documents were part of a disciplinary complaint of thousands of pages filed with the CNMP when Zanin was still a practicing lawyer.

After the ruling, Dallagnol called it a victory for election law and for the voters' right to choose. "Today, the law, justice and the will of Paraná to decide its own future prevailed," he said. His candidacy remains valid, but the legal fight may continue: according to Folha de S.Paulo, the challenging parties are expected to appeal to the TSE.