RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday (23) dismissed a complaint against the Prosecutor General, Augusto Aras, accused of “omissions” in the face of infractions alleged to have been committed by President Jair Bolsonaro.
In his decision, De Moraes argued that “insufficient evidence was presented” of the crime of malfeasance, of which Aras was accused by two senators, according to whom he would have “failed in his duty to act” in relation to various suspicions involving President Bolsonaro.
Under Brazilian law, when there are investigations or accusations against a sitting head of state, only the Federal Prosecutor General’s office has the obligation to handle them, and Aras is said not to have done anything with regard to dossiers involving Jair Bolsonaro.
The action attempted by senators Fabiano Contarato, of the ecologist Rede party, and Alessandro Vieira, of the centrist Citizenship, listed however a series of issues in which, from their points of view, Bolsonaro would have violated the laws.
“The president accuses the Brazilian electoral system of fraud without evidence; he intimidates Congress with tanks in the streets; he incites agglomerations and violates the sanitary measures to combat covid; he threatens the Supreme Court,” reads the complaint, accusing Aras of “inaction” and “doing nothing” in the face of these facts.”
De Moraes decision to dismiss the complaint against Aras may be interpreted as a peace offering, coming as it did on the eve of the Senate’s consideration of Aras’s nomination to continue at the helm of the Prosecutor General’s Office after serving an initial two-year term.
Justice de Moraes is responsible for investigations against Bolsonaro being processed in the Federal Supreme Court, to which the conservative leader has responded with a controversial and unprecedented request to the Senate to remove him as a Justice of the Supreme Court.
The presidential impeachment request came in the context of an institutional conflict triggered by controversial actions on the part of both the Supreme Court and the President.