Never in 136 Years: Brazil’s Supreme Court Turns on Itself Over Banco Master
BRAZIL · SUPREME COURT
Key Facts
- —The order Court president Edson Fachin gave Justice André Mendonça 24 hours to hand every linked file to his colleagues.
- —The gap The court’s system indexes 4,514 documents in the case and displays 4,334. Moraes wants the other 180.
- —The volume About 4,000 files and 25.3 gigabytes were published when the seal came off.
- —The precedent None. No sitting justice has been criminally investigated in the court’s 136 years.
- —The catch Ten justices vote on Tuesday. Two of them are subjects of the material they will be voting on.
- —The Senate Between 55 and 66 impeachment requests against Moraes are filed. Not one has been processed.
Thirteen retired justices call it the most acute crisis in the court’s history. The reason every step has been taken by one judge acting alone is that Brazil has no procedure for this.
Brazil’s Supreme Court gave one of its own justices 24 hours on Friday to hand over every Banco Master file. The order came from the court’s president and was aimed at a colleague.
Strip away the procedure and what is left is simple. Two sitting justices have accused each other, in writing, of corrupting a criminal investigation.
Thirteen retired members of the court wrote to its president on 7 September. They called it the most acute crisis in the institution’s history, and they are not being rhetorical.
What Happened on Friday
Edson Fachin acted on a request from the prosecutor general’s office. Conjur reported that the request asked for disclosure of all linked material, “sem exceção” — without exception.
Justices Alexandre de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin had pressed for fuller access in parallel. Zanin’s request was narrower, covering the contents extracted from a banker’s phone.
The order is unusually physical. André Mendonça was told to copy the complete files onto a hard drive.
He must deliver them to the presidency and to every justice’s chambers. The decision was issued in Petition 16.704.
Conjur listed the material by docket number. It covers Petition 15.556, Inquiry 5.026, Inquiry 5.035, a constitutional complaint and eleven further petitions.
Only one exemption survives. Investigative steps whose disclosure would still damage police work may stay sealed.
The 180 Documents
The deadline exists because of an arithmetic dispute. The court’s own digital system indexes 4,514 documents in the case and displays 4,334 of them.
Moraes put the missing 180 in a written note to Fachin on Friday, reiterating an earlier one. O Globo published the passage.
He wrote of a “levantamento seletivo e direcionado” of secrecy by Mendonça. It was carried out, he said, in ostensive protection of a particular political group.
He called it a repeat of illegal steering of plea deals and of investigative orders against predetermined targets. That is one justice accusing another of running a case to shield politicians.
Mendonça answered the same day. Gazeta do Povo reported him attributing the mismatch to technical and normative reasons.
Some files stay sealed, he said, to protect banking and tax data of people still under investigation. Every piece effectively available, he added, had been duly made public.
The volume is not trivial. O Globo and Revista Oeste counted about 4,000 files and 25.3 gigabytes published when the Banco Master seal came off.
How the Case Reached Mendonça
The Banco Master investigation did not start with him. Dias Toffoli held the rapporteurship until 12 February 2026.
BBC News Brasil reported that he left it under pressure, amid questions about his impartiality. Jota noted the court chose a minimalist route.
There was no formal declaration of impediment and no collegiate ruling on the impartiality question. Toffoli simply stopped being rapporteur.
Mendonça got the case the same day, by electronic random draw. A file that would decide whether a justice can be investigated was allocated by lottery.
What Was on the Phone
On 1 September Mendonça lifted the seal on Petition 16.662. Inside was a 218-page federal police report analysing Daniel Vorcaro’s mobile phone.
Poder360 reported that investigators identified 52 messages sent by Vorcaro to a contact attributed to Moraes. BBC News Brasil described conversations reconstructed from screenshots of deleted exchanges.
The contact was saved as “Alexandre de Moraes BRASILIA”. Nexo Jornal reported that the material points to at least six in-person meetings.
It also reported that the police document indicates Moraes edited a contract. The parties were Vorcaro and the law firm of his wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes.
A second contract with a company in the Banco Master network was worth 50 million reais, about US$9.8 million. None of it has produced a charge.
Moraes has not been charged with anything. The question before the court is whether the police may build on this material at all.
Moraes Strikes Back
Two days later he moved against Mendonça. On 3 September he asked Fachin to open an investigation into his colleague.
The grounds were administrative misconduct, abuse of authority and a crime of responsibility. He added the charge of favouring particular political groups.
His legal argument was institutional rather than personal. Only the full bench, he said, can examine possible common crimes by a magistrate.
By directing investigative steps against another justice, he argued, Mendonça had exceeded the role of a rapporteur. The prosecutor general has made a version of the same argument in the opposite direction.
The Fight Over the Police
The dispute then reached the federal police command. Mendonça ordered the removal of the force’s director-general; Flávio Dino ordered him reinstated.
Both orders were live at once. On 9 September Fachin suspended both and pulled the matter to the presidency.
The same evening he did something larger. He removed Moraes from the fake-news inquiry the justice had run since 2019 and took it himself.
He used article 43 of the court’s internal rules to do it. Acts already performed stay valid, and cases already at trial stage stay with Moraes.
Why There Is No Procedure
Every step in this crisis has been taken by one justice acting alone or by the presidency. None has been taken by the full bench, and that is not an accident.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court was created in 1890. In the 136 years since, no sitting justice has been criminally investigated, indicted or tried for a common crime.
Folha de S.Paulo established the point in a 2019 survey and the court itself confirmed it had no such records. Later reporting has not disturbed it.
No justice has ever been impeached either. The single case of a member leaving under compulsion is Cândido Barata Ribeiro.
The Senate rejected his appointment in 1894, while he was already sitting. That is a confirmation vote, not a disciplinary one.
That is the whole precedent. A court with no template for investigating itself is improvising one in public, six weeks before a general election.
The Senate Is Not Coming
One constitutional exit exists in theory. The Senate can try a justice for a crime of responsibility.
The petitions are there in quantity. Poder360 counted 55 impeachment requests against Moraes since 2021, and Congresso em Foco put the historical total at 66.
Senate president Davi Alcolumbre said there were 109 against the court’s members in total. He has forwarded none of them.
Seventeen have been archived, twenty-one await a ruling and twenty-seven sit with the Senate’s legal office. The political branch has chosen not to act, which leaves the court holding the problem.
What Tuesday Decides
The plenary sits on 15 September with Mendonça as rapporteur. CNN Brasil set out its three questions.
The first is whether Mendonça’s order to deepen the analysis of Vorcaro’s phone data was lawful. The second is whether the police material produced from it can be used.
The third is what becomes of the part concerning Moraes. It can support an investigation into him or be archived.
The prosecutor general’s office has asked the court to annul the procedure outright. Its argument is that one justice cannot investigate another without notice to the presidency or the full bench.
Ten justices will vote, not eleven. Luís Roberto Barroso retired in October 2025 and his seat is still empty.
The Senate rejected the government’s nominee for it, Jorge Messias, on 29 April 2026 by 42 votes to 34. No replacement has been named.
Gilmar Mendes has already told Fachin the case cannot properly be heard on that date. He warned of “decisões inconciliáveis e desordem procedimental” if the strands are judged separately.
Why This Reaches Beyond Brasília
Brazil votes on 4 October. The court that will rule on election disputes is the one now accusing itself, in the Banco Master file, of protecting politicians.
Both sides of the presidential race are inside the Banco Master file. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation over an investment he is said to have sought from Vorcaro.
Names close to the government appear in the bank’s consultancy contracts. Neither strand has produced a charge against a candidate.
The Economist put the point sharply on 10 September. Its leader was headlined “When the defenders of democracy turn their backs on it instead”.
Its argument was that the justices who protected Brazilian democracy now threaten confidence in it. The Banco Master scandal sits at the centre of that case.
That is a contestable claim and it is being contested. But a court improvising its own disciplinary procedure in public is a source of risk.
It is meant to be the body that settles disputes about the vote. Six weeks out, it is generating them.
Whether the hard drive arrives complete is the immediate test. Nobody outside the court can verify it, which is why the argument became public at all.
More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Banco Master case?
It is a federal police fraud investigation into a Brazilian lender and its controlling shareholder, Daniel Vorcaro. Files in the case also contain police reports on a Supreme Court justice, which is how it became a constitutional dispute.
Has a Brazilian Supreme Court justice ever been investigated before?
No. In the court’s 136-year history no sitting justice has been criminally investigated, indicted or impeached. The only member ever forced out was Cândido Barata Ribeiro, after the Senate rejected his appointment in 1894.
Why does the court have ten justices instead of eleven?
One seat has been vacant since Luís Roberto Barroso retired in October 2025. The Senate rejected the nominee put forward for it, Jorge Messias, in April 2026.
What did Fachin actually order?
He ordered Mendonça to lift secrecy on all linked procedures within 24 hours and to deliver complete copies on a hard drive to every justice’s chambers. Only steps that would damage live police work may stay sealed.
Can the Senate remove a justice?
In theory yes, for a crime of responsibility. In practice dozens of petitions against Alexandre de Moraes have been filed and none has been forwarded for processing.
Sources: Migalhas, Conjur, Gazeta do Povo, O Globo, G1, Poder360, CNN Brasil, BBC News Brasil, Nexo Jornal, Folha de S.Paulo, Jota, Congresso em Foco, Agência Brasil, Agência Senado, The Economist, Revista Oeste.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
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