Brazil takes another step in its process of rewriting the political and judicial history of the last decade, marked by the mega-operation against corruption Lava Jato, its effects and the spectacular ups and downs around the case. A Supreme Court judge, Jose Antonio Dias Toffoli, affirms that in a ruling released this Wednesday that the imprisonment of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was “a montage resulting from a power project of certain public agents in their objective of conquering the State by apparently legal means. And he describes that decision, adopted by the highest court at the gates of the 2018 elections, as “one of the biggest judicial errors in the history of Brazil.” Lula, who has always declared himself the victim of a judicial war, spent a year and a half in prison before staging an impressive political resurrection. He is enjoying his third term as president and, at 77, he does not rule out running for re-election.
The magistrate also orders the opening of a criminal investigation against the prosecutors who led the Lava Jato investigation, a gigantic bribery scheme that landed leading politicians and businessmen in jail, men considered untouchable until then. And the main Brazilian construction companies were ruined. The accusations against Lula and a good part of the rest of those convicted have been gradually annulled by the judges in recent years.
And as so often in Brazil, reality once again imitates the best soap operas and Judge Sergio Moro, who jailed Lula, will now be investigated together with Lava Jato prosecutors.
Toffoli’s words have immediately opened digital news and newspapers. The judge has put his conclusions on Lava Jato black on white in a judicial decision that annuls all the evidence obtained in connection with a collaboration agreement signed at the peak of the case by prosecutors with the construction company Odebrecht.
The changes in criteria of the Supreme Court, sometimes in the heat of popular outcry against the corrupt, are what first made it possible for Lula to enter jail and release him. Later, the revelation of the collusion between the prosecutors and Judge Sérgio Moro, thanks to messages leaked by a hacker, led to the annulment of the sentences against the current president and other defendants.
Toffoli is one of the eleven magistrates that make up Brazil’s highest judicial court. He was appointed in 2009 at the proposal of Lula after having been a lawyer for the Workers’ Party (PT). He was one of the togados who voted against the imprisonment of the leftist politician in 2019 and his change of position the following year regarding imprisonment in the second instance, together with that of two other Supreme Court judges, opened the door for Lula to remain on freedom.
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The Workers’ Party has defended for years the thesis that the dismissal of Dilma Rousseff by Congress and the imprisonment of Lula were a bloodless coup to remove the left from power.
The Supreme Court judge also affirmed that “the setup” to put Lula in prison was “the true serpent’s egg of the attacks on democracy.” And it is in another of the most discussed chapters of this complex plot, Lula’s imprisonment in 2018 paved the way for the surprising victory of a mediocre far-right deputy, the retired military man Jair Bolsonaro. Last January, thousands of his followers tried to carry out a coup by storming the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia. The judges have just disqualified Bolsonaro, who for eight years cannot run in the elections.
Other protagonists of this story have also seen their trajectory radically change course. The former judge Moro, who was briefly a minister in the Bolsonaro government, lost his toga for not being impartial with Lula and in the last elections he won a senator seat.
Lula used to repeat, when he was in jail or still immersed in the various cases against him, that he was a victim of lawfareof a judicial war. That is the pillar on which he built his defense in court. He was so grateful to the lawyer that he designed that successful strategy, Cristiano Zanin, who now – with the cases annulled and back in power – has just appointed him a Supreme Court judge.
The president may shortly appoint a second magistrate because one of the Supreme Court judges is retiring for turning 75.
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