Investigating Brazilians calling for military intervention “unfair” – President Bolsonaro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday (26) considered “unfair” the investigations underway in the Supreme Court (STF) against right-wing activists who, among their demands, call for military intervention, something that in his opinion is protected by “freedom of expression.”

“If someone commits some anti-democratic act, it is against the federal government, it is not against someone from the Supreme Court. And I don’t complain because I understand it as freedom of opinion,” the president told a group of supporters outside the Alvorada Palace, his official residence in Brasília.

“This is freedom of expression. It is in the Constitution. I respect that. Others don’t. It’s not fair to punish, to open an investigation against these people,” the president added.

Bolsonaro thus criticized the investigations opened in the STF last year after a series of demonstrations calling for the “closure” of the high court and the Parliament through a “military intervention” that would keep the current head of state in power.

The retired Army captain and leader of the Brazilian far-right went so far as to attend some of these events, which the Prosecutor’s Office called “anti-democratic”.

The Supreme Court then opened a process to try to find out who financed and organized these protests. However, the judge in charge of the case, Alexandre de Moraes, closed it on July 1, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which alleged lack of evidence.

However, the magistrate decided at the same time to open another investigation, given suspicions of the existence of an “anti-democratic digital organization” composed of “political agents, officials, and self-styled communicators” that would be disseminating extremist ideas.

In this context, Bolsonaro compared these investigations with the situation of the former interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, who has been held in a La Paz jail since last March accused of terrorism, sedition, and conspiracy within the process known as “coup d’état”.

In this context, Bolsonaro assured that Justice could not investigate whoever raises a sign in defense of Article 142 of the Constitution, related to the performance of the Armed Forces in the country.

“He raises a sign with Article 142 and is prosecuted for that? Then we are going to remove Article 142 from the Constitution,” he said.

ARTICLE 142 OF THE CONSTITUTION

Article 142 of the Constitution states that the armed forces are to “guarantee the constitutional branches of government and, on the initiative of any of these branches, law, and order.“

Bolsonaristas argue that the Constitution, under Article 142, delegates to the armed forces the role of a “constitutional moderator“ that can be called up by the President to re-establish law and order when the Supreme Court goes astray. The 1824 Constituion declared the Emperor to be the “moderating power” of the empire, able to override any subordinate institution, but no constitution since Brazil became a republic in 1889 has mentioned any such power.

However, nothing in the Constitution tells how this “moderation“ is to take place or what is the mechanism through which any branch of government can summon the armed forces.