Brazil’s Supreme Court annuls evidence against Flavio Bolsonaro in corruption case

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Second Chamber of Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) declared inadmissible a series of financial reports used against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, President Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, in a corruption investigation that has already suffered several setbacks in lower courts.

By three votes to one, the magistrates declared that four of the five financial intelligence reports that were used by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rio de Janeiro to denounce, in November 2020, Flavio Bolsonaro, were obtained “irregularly”.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses Bolsonaro’s eldest son of enriching himself from the fraudulent hiring of officials for his cabinet during his time as a regional deputy of Rio de Janeiro.

The Supreme Court’s decision follows another taken last November 9 by the Superior Federal Court (STJ), which annulled all the proceedings authorized by the federal district court of Rio de Janeiro in charge of the case, arguing that the court had no subject matter jurisdiction.

In February, the STJ also annulled another part of the investigation, considering that the suspension of the bank and tax secrecy of the current senator, ordered at that time by the Prosecutor’s Office, did not comply with the law.

Now, the Second Chamber of the STF, the highest judicial instance in the country, argued that the investigators shared financial data, which reflected atypical bank movements in Flavio Bolsonaro’s accounts, in an “illegitimate” way and without the due endorsement of a court having jurisdiction.

This series of judicial triumphs of Bolsonaro’s firstborn has practically stopped the investigation against him. Flavio Bolsonaro was denounced before the courts for the crimes of a criminal organization, embezzlement, money laundering and misappropriation, in the case of the “Rachadinhas”, as salary kickbacks are popularly known in Brazil.

According to the accusation, the scion of the Brazilian president led and benefited from a scheme that for years appropriated part of the salaries of personnel hired for his cabinet in the Legislative Assembly of Rio, although in reality they did not perform any function.

Flavio Bolsonaro, who has always strongly denied these accusations and has declared himself the victim of “political persecution” that seeks to damage his father’s image, was a state deputy in Rio between 2003 and 2019, when he took up his seat in the Senate.

The jurisdictional question is whether Flavio Bolsonaro, who had the right to a special forum when he was a state deputy, lost that right when he became a Senator. The STJ and STF have now held that he did not lose that right, so all the prior proceedings in the lower court have been declared null and void.