Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) on Tuesday (22) drew Justice Cristiano Zanin to report a case filed by Senator Alessandro Vieira that seeks to force Senate President Davi Alcolumbre to install a congressional inquiry into Banco Master. The inquiry, known by the Portuguese acronym CPI, would examine alleged ties between two court justices, Alexandre de Moraes and Dias Toffoli, and the bank's owner, Daniel Vorcaro, according to the news site Metrópoles.
Vieira's petition says the request to create the inquiry was filed with the Senate on March 9. Nearly six months later, Alcolumbre has not ordered the request to be read, numbered or published. That delay is what took the senator to the court.
Requirements and precedent
Vieira argues that the Senate president has no authority to decide when to create the committee. All constitutional requirements were met, according to the filing: support from one third of the chamber, a determined fact and a defined time frame. The Constitution requires 27 of 81 signatures. The request gathered 35 on the day it was filed and later reached 41, according to documents cited by Metrópoles.
The senator points to a precedent. In 2021, the STF ordered Rodrigo Pacheco, the Senate president at the time, to install the COVID-19 inquiry known as the CPI da Pandemia. Vieira now asks the court to give Alcolumbre 48 hours, or until the first plenary session after notice, to read the request and take the steps to set up the committee. He also asks that party leaders have 48 hours to nominate full members and alternates. Without nominations, Alcolumbre himself would choose the members.
The proposed committee would have 11 full members and six alternates, a 120-day mandate and a spending cap of 50,000 reais. Its stated goal is to investigate possible personal, financial or other ties between Moraes, Toffoli, Vorcaro and people connected to Banco Master.
What comes next
The next move belongs to Zanin, who will review the request and decide whether the court will order Alcolumbre to act. The case is one of several Banco Master disputes before the court. On the same day, Justice Luiz Fux was drawn to report a separate Master-related request seeking the release of records of entries and exits by Vorcaro and Moraes' wife into Senate buildings, according to Jornal do Commercio.