Justice Gilmar Mendes Says Supreme Court Must Not Be Afraid To Judge Sérgio Moro’s Actions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL –  In an interview with Folha de S.Paulo published on Sunday, September 15th, Federal Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes said he will not evaluate the popularity of former judge Sérgio Moro when assessing his suspicion.

“If a court comes to consider such a factor, it will have to close down,” he said.

He was adamant: “Let’s imagine that these people were in the Executive. What would they do? They would certainly close Congress, they would close the Supreme Court. This phenomenon of institutional violation would not have occurred systematically had it not been for the media’s endorsement. Therefore, they are co-authors of the misdeeds.”

Gilmar also pointed out deviations committed by Moro and Dallagnol during the Lava Jato case. “The collusion between judge, prosecutor, delegate and people from the Federal Revenue Service is spurious. This does not fall under our model of rule of law,” he said and added that Brazil must “end this cycle of false heroes”.

“People realize that this prosecutor is not behaving properly. This judge is not behaving properly. Whether or not we will annul those judgments, the judgment that is emerging is that this is not how justice should work. That this is wrong, that these people were using their duties for something else. This has become more and more evident,” said Gilmar.

“What indisputable power is this? We have learned, by observing this underworld, what they did: allegations subject to contingencies, mocking people, persecuting relatives to achieve results in relation to the person under investigation. None of this has anything to do with the rule of law.”.