By José Roberto Guzzo
(Opinion) Brazil no longer has a Supreme Federal Court (STF).
In its place has come a dictatorial police force that invades citizens’ homes and offices at 6 a.m., violates the civil rights of those it persecutes, and behaves in increasingly aggressive ways as if the laws of the land did not exist – it is, in fact, the one that makes the laws and is accountable to no one.
This aberration is commanded by Justice Alexandre de Moraes and supported by colleagues who behave like religious fanatics; they have abandoned their duties as judges and have now become activists of a political group.
Their latest addition to omnipotence is this amazing operation against so-called “coup plotters.”
There is not a shred of evidence or reasonable indication that the victims of the Justices have committed any crime against the political, social, or constitutional order of the country.
All they have done is talk to each other on their private cell phones. What kind of crime is that?
And even if they have done something wrong, it is solely up to the prosecution to bring charges.
The law states that no one else can do this; a judge is never part of the investigation or any case, it is only up to him to judge who is in the right – the prosecution or the defense.
And even if everything had been above board in the investigation, the businessmen could not be charged before the STF because they do not have the special forum required for that.
The lawyers do not have access to the files – and that does not exist in any democracy in the world.
Nor do Supreme Court ministers have a team of police officers at their service and under their command.
Alexandre de Moraes and most of his STF colleagues want President Bolsonaro to be forced out of office – that, and only that, is what this is all about, leaving aside the immense pretext of brainwashing against “anti-democratic acts.”
And that’s a good thing: many people also want that. The real problem, the only problem, is that Bolsonaro is on trial, and the verdict will come soon, in the October elections.
The real judges will be the 150 million Brazilian voters – not the Supreme Court Justices. It is perfectly legitimate to think that Bolsonaro is forming a bad, lousy, or more than lousy government. If so, there is no problem.
Brazilians will freely vote against him, and everything will be solved.
However, the STF and the sectors that support it want to eliminate the president by using state power to break the law, trample on citizens’ rights and suppress freedom.
It is a manifest disaster.
(J.R. Guzzo, published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo on August 28, 2022)