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BRASILIA – In the ruling of the appeal of President Jair Bolsonaro, Minister Celso de Mello, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), once again said that no one is above the law or deserves selective treatment. He is voting to uphold the decision in which he ordered Bolsonaro to testify in person, rather than in writing, in the investigation in which he is being investigated. The final decision will be made by majority vote in the plenary session of the Court. It was Celso who authorized the opening of the process to find out if Bolsonaro tried to unduly interfere with the Federal Police (PF).
This is also the last session of the minister, who will retire next week, after 31 years of work at the Court.
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The Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP) says that the President of the Republic, the Vice President and the Presidents of the Senate, the Chamber and the STF can give written testimony when they are witnesses, but it does not mention situations in which they are in condition. investigated. On the other hand, in 2017 the STF ministers Luís Roberto Barroso and Edson Fachin authorized the then president Michel Temer to provide written explanations in two different investigations in which he was investigated.
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Celso pointed out that there are decisions to the contrary of those that benefited Temer, not authorizing the heads of power to give written testimony when they are investigated. As an example, he cited the case of former Senate president Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), a target of Lava-Jato. And, as he had done in his decision, he pointed out that the President of the Republic “is also subject to the laws” and that it is necessary not to give him selective treatment not provided for in the law.
– No one, not even the Chief Executive of the Union, is above the authority of the Constitution and the laws of the Republic, and therefore does not have any legitimacy to assume, aristocratically, that they have selective treatment – said Celso.
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Then he added:
– Nobody, absolutely nobody, has the legitimacy to transgress and denigrate the laws and the Constitution of our country, nobody, absolutely nobody, is above the authority of the legal system of the Brazilian State. Therefore, it is worthwhile to insist on the affirmation that the republican postulate repels privileges and does not tolerate discrimination, preventing the establishment of selective treatments in favor of certain people and avoiding the imposition of severe restrictions to the detriment of others, Your condition. social, or birth, kinship, gender, friendship, ethnic origin, sexual orientation or status informs the very configuration of the idea of Republic, which is guided by the axiological vector of equality.
Celso listed some rights that those investigated have, such as keeping silence, and concluded:
– The fact that the President of the Republic ensures such rights, like any other citizen, does not allow him, President of the Republic, to subvert the procedural norms and create a particular right that grants him, as investigated, prerogatives that no other investigated has. .
The investigation stems from accusations made by former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who left the government in April. It is also investigated in the process. After Celso’s decision to determine that the president’s testimony should be in person, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation (AGU) appealed.
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Celso also allowed Moro to speak about Bolsonaro’s appeal. His lawyers responded last Monday, coinciding with the minister’s decision. Moro’s defense recalled that he provided clarifications in person, not on screen, in May. Therefore, it is necessary to provide conditions of equality between the two investigated in the investigation. On Thursday, Celso agreed with this argument from Moro’s lawyers.
Celso was on sick leave until recently. Thus, during his absence, the person in charge of analyzing the investigation was also the STF minister, Marco Aurélio Mello. Marco Aurélio preferred to take the AGU appeal to trial in the virtual plenary session, in which the ministers did not get to debate among themselves. They simply put their votes into the electronic system of the Court and the result is computed later. But, even before the virtual trial began, he cast his vote in favor of the written statement.
Last week, Celso, who had already returned from his license, withdrew the appeal from the virtual trial. Its objective was to take the case to be analyzed in the physical plenary session, which, during the covid-19 pandemic, is being met by videoconference. According to Celso, the trial in this way will give more publicity to the issue. Last Monday he asked that the case be put on the trial agenda. It was up to Minister Luiz Fux, as president of the STF, to set the date.
