Brazil Supreme Court moves to end bitter judges’ feud

The Brazilian Supreme Court president on Wednesday attempted to end a crisis in the court by suspending a series of conflicting rulings by rival judges that have dominated a bitter election campaign.

The court is reeling from a scandal involving the alleged links between leading Justice Alexandre de Moraes and a disgraced banker charged with massive fraud.

The case has descended into open warfare between Moraes, who famously led the coup investigation into former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and fellow Justice Andre Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee.

People walk past the sculpture The Justice by artist Alfredo Ceschiatti in front of the Supreme Court in Brasilia on Wednesday.

Photo: EPA

On Tuesday, the country’s top policeman, Andrei Rodrigues, was swept up in the infighting, when he was suspended by Mendonca, who accused the police of spying on him.

A day later a third justice, Flavio Dino, a former minister under Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, reinstated the head of the federal police.

Brazilian Supreme Court President Edson Fachin promptly waded into the dispute and suspended both rulings, according to a ruling seen by Agence France-Presse.

Fachin gave Rodrigues 48 hours to provide information before deciding his fate.

The eruption in the court has overshadowed the run-up to next month’s presidential election, in which Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flavio Bolsonaro, is trying to unseat Lula.

Mendonca fired the opening salvo in the row by ordering the publication last week of text messages from banker Daniel Vorcaro to Moraes, asking for information about the case against him.

Moraes hit back, accusing Mendonca of abuse of power on the basis of confidential police intelligence reports, whereupon Mendonca suspended Rodrigues.

The texts from Vorcaro, whose private bank Banco Master collapsed last year in a multibillion-dollar pool of debt, have become fodder in the presidential race.

Lula on Wednesday said “greater transparency” was needed in the case, as well as an end to “selective leaks that impact the electoral race.”

“It is urgent to fully lift the secrecy of the investigations into all those involved in the Master case, whoever they may be, no matter who it hurts. Brazil needs to know the truth,” he wrote on X.

Vorcaro had boasted of having “friends in all branches of government” before becoming embroiled in one of Brazil’s biggest-ever financial scandals.

The Master case is a “toxic” affair, a Supreme Court source said, adding that police suspect the banker “put money into various places in order to later collect favors.”

In the days leading up to his arrest in November, Vorcaro sent about 30 text messages to a phone number police say belonged to Moraes.

“Do you think I need to be out of the country as early as Monday?” he asked in one message, just before his arrest while boarding a private jet.

Flavio Bolsonaro has pounced on the texts to bash Moraes, a hate figure for the Brazilian and US right for having spearheaded the coup trial of his father.

Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump, is serving a 27-year jail sentence after he was convicted of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to Lula.

However, Flavio Bolsonaro’s own links to Vorcaro have been questioned after it emerged that the banker transferred millions of dollars to an intermediary at the senator’s request.

The younger Bolsonaro said the money was intended for use toward a film about his father.

The scandal engulfing the Supreme Court has sown alarm in the Brazilian business community.

About 3,000 business organizations released a manifesto on Wednesday, warning of an “extremely serious institutional crisis.”

“If the legitimacy [of the judges] is questioned, everything else becomes uncertain: legal certainty, trust in institutions, and even social peace,” they said.