Brazil: Supreme Court orders punishments for those who participated in the occupation of the powers headquarters

The president of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Justice Rosa Weber, opened the new judicial year on Wednesday, promising to impose “the rigor of the law” against those who participated in any way in the attacks on the Esplanade of the Ministries last January 8.

“Those who conceived, practiced, inspired, and financed it will be held accountable with the rigor of the law in the different spheres; only in this way will the constitutional order be reaffirmed,” said Weber in her opening speech.

The head of the Supreme Court was accompanied by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, during a solemn act in which images of the damages suffered by the court headquarters during the assault were shown.

“In this same plenary totally reconstituted after the criminal invasion of last January 8 by a demented mob moved by hatred and irrationality, I reaffirm my profession as a judge,” stressed the judge, who promised an “intransigent defense” of the Constitution and the democratic state and the rule of law.

For his part, Lula da Silva has praised the work of the Supreme Court justices during Jair Bolsonaro’s term.

“The end of that period surely marked the hardest test of Brazilian democracy since the Constitution of ’88,” Lula da Silva said.

He also highlighted “the decisive role” of both the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) “in defense of Brazilian society.”

With information from LGI