Brazil’s Supreme Court confirms that former judge Moro was biased in Lula trial

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The majority of Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) justices confirmed, on Thursday, April 22, that former judge Sergio Moro did not act with “impartiality” in one of the trials against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose sentences had been previously annulled.

By 7 votes to 2, most of the court cast votes ratifying the decision handed down a month ago by the Second Panel of the Supreme Court; the session was suspended and the decision of two other justices is still pending.

The ruling, which is limited to a trial over the “triplex” beach apartment that Lula allegedly received as a bribe, also means that the evidence gathered against the former president by prosecutors in Curitiba, where Moro was based, cannot be used as evidence when his case is retried.

The defense of the former president said in a statement that the court’s ruling confirms that Moro “promoted a real crusade” against the former president to “accuse and convict him without evidence to remove him from the 2018 presidential elections and political life.”

“It is the reestablishment of due legal process and the credibility of the Judiciary in Brazil,” highlighted the note signed by lawyers Cristiano Zanin and Valeska T.Z. Martins.

Thursday’s decision represented a new judicial victory for Lula, a week after the court ratified the annulment of the sentences issued in the first instance against the former president in proceedings that were in charge of the court of Curitiba, considering that there was a conflict of jurisdiction.

The argument put forward by the judges is that the cases for which Lula was tried were not linked to the corruption at state-owned Petrobras and therefore were outside the jurisdiction of Curitiba, which is limited to cases related to the oil company.

The STF plenary confirmed on Thursday that the proceedings in Curitiba would be sent to courts in Brasília, where they will be retried and not to Sao Paulo, as had been proposed by one Justice last week.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, Lula, who spent 580 days in prison for those proceedings now annulled, recovered his political rights and cleared the way for a possible candidacy in 2022, after being barred by statute because of his convictions from running in the 2018 elections, which were won by Jair Bolsonaro.