Brazil Supreme Court Feud: Mendonça Asks Fachin to Investigate Moraes
Brazil · Politics
Key Facts
- —What happened Justice André Mendonça answered Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s complaint against him in a 76-page filing dated 21 September 2026.
- —What he wants The complaint archived, and Moraes assessed for abuse of authority and false accusation of a crime.
- —His main target Federal Police intelligence reports that Moraes relied on, which Mendonça calls a dossier built for intimidation.
- —The catch Only Chief Justice Edson Fachin and the full court can act, and no ruling date has been set.
- —Who has been charged Nobody. No court has found wrongdoing by either justice.
- —Why it matters Two sitting justices now formally accuse each other, with the Banco Master fraud case in the background.
Accused by a colleague of bias, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice has answered in 76 pages. He wants the complaint dropped and his accuser examined.
The Brazil Supreme Court feud has a new filing, and it hits back hard. Justice André Mendonça has asked the court’s president to throw out a colleague’s complaint against him.
He also wants that colleague, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, assessed for possible crimes. The 76-page response, dated Monday 21 September 2026, became public on Tuesday.
Mendonça sent it to Chief Justice Edson Fachin, who presides over the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Brazil’s highest court. Fachin now holds both men’s complaints.
What Moraes had alleged
Moraes accused Mendonça on 3 September of “strong indications” of administrative misconduct, abuse of authority and a “crime of responsibility”. That last term covers impeachable offences by senior officials.
The accusation concerned Mendonça’s handling of two police investigations. One is Operation Compliance Zero, into Banco Master; the other, Operation Sem Desconto, involves INSS, the social security institute.
Moraes alleged a “breach of judicial impartiality and favouring of certain political groups”. He also said Mendonça had steered investigators towards Moraes himself and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre “for personal and political reasons”.
He made the accusation inside the court’s long-running fake news inquiry, which he oversees. That inquiry was opened on 14 March 2019 to investigate attacks on the court and its members.
Mendonça’s answer
Mendonça calls the allegations “reckless and irresponsible”. He rejects all three alleged acts and says every one rests on Federal Police intelligence reports.
Moraes ordered the Federal Police on 1 September to send him intelligence reports mentioning Supreme Court justices. According to the filing, the police sent six reports received between 3 and 31 August.
Mendonça argues those papers are unsigned working documents that state they have no evidentiary value. He quotes one saying it must not be used “to ground a complaint”.
In his words, the reports amount to “a dossier made with misuse of purpose to be used as a piece of intimidation”. Elsewhere he calls the practice “institutional snooping”.
He also says Moraes distorted the reports, attributing to him conduct that the documents themselves attribute to police teams. The fake news inquiry, he adds, is the wrong home for such a case.
“It is not this minister who should have been included in that interminable investigation,” he wrote. He noted it has dragged on “for more than seven years”.
Six requests to the chief justice
Mendonça asks Fachin first for the “summary archiving” of the complaint under the court’s internal rules. That would end it without a full-court vote.
Second, he asks the presidency to weigh investigating Moraes under Brazil’s abuse of authority law. He also cites the penal code article on denunciação caluniosa, falsely accusing someone of a crime.
He further wants an inquiry into who wrote the intelligence reports and how. He asks the court to declare such reports unlawful and to ban new ones.
Finally, he asks for full access to the fake news inquiry file. He wants to see whether it holds other material about him.
Why the Brazil Supreme Court feud matters
The dispute grows out of Banco Master, a mid-sized private bank. Its owner, Daniel Vorcaro, was arrested on 17 November 2025, and the Central Bank ordered the bank liquidated the next day.
Mendonça became rapporteur, the justice supervising the investigation, in February. On 12 September Fachin took over the Moraes messages case and pulled the Master files to the presidency.
In his filing Mendonça cites a police report finding at least 52 messages between Vorcaro and Moraes.
That report also describes meetings, and legal services contracts with people in Moraes’s family circle. In his defence to Fachin, Moraes denied receiving messages from Vorcaro, O Globo reported; he has not been charged.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet asked the court on 1 September to annul the police inquiry into those messages. He argued that Mendonça had exceeded a judge’s powers in ordering it.
The two justices come from opposite camps. Mendonça, a Presbyterian pastor, was appointed in 2021 by former President Jair Bolsonaro; Michel Temer appointed Moraes in 2017.
Moraes has spent years leading inquiries into Bolsonaro and his allies. That history gives the Brazil Supreme Court feud a sharp political edge before the 4 October election.
What happens next
Fachin had set a full-court session on the Mendonça case for 23 September. On 17 September he removed it from the agenda, ConJur reported.
He linked it to a parallel case on whether Moraes should be investigated over his Vorcaro ties. On 15 September the vote stood 4 to 3 for keeping them separate when Justice Flávio Dino asked for more time.
Fachin will now read Mendonça’s answer and decide the next step. No response from Moraes to the filing had been reported by Tuesday afternoon.
More: Brazil coverage, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are André Mendonça and Alexandre de Moraes?
Both sit on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, the 11-member top court. Moraes, appointed by Michel Temer in 2017, oversees the court’s fake news inquiry and has led cases against Jair Bolsonaro and his allies. Mendonça, a former justice minister and Presbyterian pastor, was appointed by Bolsonaro in 2021.
What does Mendonça want?
He asks Chief Justice Edson Fachin to archive Moraes’s complaint summarily. He also wants the presidency to weigh investigating Moraes for abuse of authority and false accusation of a crime. He seeks a probe into the Federal Police intelligence reports, a ban on similar reports, and full access to the fake news inquiry file.
Has anyone been charged?
No. Neither justice has been charged, and no court has found wrongdoing by either. Both complaints are with the court’s presidency, and any investigation of a justice would need a decision by the court.
What is Banco Master?
A mid-sized private Brazilian bank that the Central Bank ordered liquidated on 18 November 2025. Its owner, Daniel Vorcaro, was arrested, and the police investigation into the bank has produced the messages now at the centre of the justices’ dispute.
Sources: Mendonça’s full 76-page response in Pet 16.704, published by Poder360, CNN Brasil on the filing and the pending vote, Metrópoles on the Monday filing, Migalhas on the six requests, ConJur on the postponed 23 September session, Poder360 on the deadline and next steps, Migalhas on Fachin taking over the Master files on 12 September, JOTA on the Banco Master liquidation
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times