Brazil: Supreme Court Justice Mendonça suggests end of fake news investigation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Amid discussions behind the scenes of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) to solve the crisis with the Presidential Palace, the proposal to end the investigation of fake news, opened in 2019 and led by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, has been gaining momentum.

Nominated by President Jair Bolsonaro, Justice André Mendonça sought the president of the Court, Luiz Fux, with this suggestion. At least four justices, according to columnist Malu Gaspar, from GLOBO, evaluate that the inquiry, one of the main causes of friction with Bolsonaro, no longer has anything to investigate.

In Mendonça’s view, while these investigations are ongoing, attacks from both sides, the Executive and the Judiciary, will continue to occur -which would not interest the country, especially in an election year.

“For the good of the country, we need to find a solution,” said Mendonça, according to interlocutors.

The justice voted to convict Congressman Daniel Silveira (PTB-RJ) for attacking the STF, but with a lighter sentence. Instead of the eight years and nine months imposed by the rapporteur, Alexandre de Moraes, Mendonça proposed a sentence of two years.

The investigation of the digital militias, which has been underway since July 2021 at the Supreme Court, is the one that has most worried the Planalto in recent months. In an event on Wednesday, Bolsonaro even mentioned having received messages that his son Carlos Bolsonaro (Republicans), councilman for Rio, could be arrested for “fake news”.

In parallel, the fake news investigation – which hit Bolsonaro’s allies and gave rise to the digital militias investigation – is moving slowly. With the last decision given in August 2021, the case has been going on for over a month without any new movement.

Although Daniel Silveira was heard in May 2020, in the scope of the fake news investigation, his recent conviction is the result of another investigation on anti-democratic acts, opened to investigate the participation of deputies in the demonstrations held on Army Day of that year.

Justices of the Supreme Court heard by GLOBO understand that the fake news investigation has reached a limit, and it is time to be closed. Interlocutors of the STF said that the investigation, opened in 2019 ex officio by then-president Dias Toffoli to investigate attacks and fake news against the Court, no longer has any effect. Still, it is exclusively up to Moraes, as rapporteur, to close the inquiry.

However, a wing of justices understands that Moraes would have no interest in closing this inquiry, considering that, by doing so, the Court would lose an important investigative tool and, consequently, power.

After Bolsonaro defied the STF and pardoned Daniel Silveira, the Court is considering how to react without increasing the crisis with the Executive. In an order on Tuesday, Moraes signaled that the president has the prerogative to grant the benefit but defined that the pardon does not reach the ineligibility of the deputy, based on the Ficha Limpa Law for conviction by a collegiate body.

The justice did not annul Bolsonaro’s decree but argued, in a case that deals with the validity of the Executive’s act, that the STF must analyze its conformity with the Constitution. Moraes said, in his decision, that the legal doctrine does not provide for the application of the pardon before the res judicata, i.e., when appeals are still possible, as is the case of Silveira.

With information from O Globo