01/12/2023 – 21:03
The minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Gilmar Mendes stated at an event this Friday, the 1st, that the Court’s ministers are not hated by the majority of the Brazilian population. The dean made reference to the statement made by a lawyer at the trial of the first person convicted of the January 8 coup acts. On the occasion, retired judge Sebastião Reis Coelho, defender of Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, stated that magistrates were the “most hated people in Brazil”.
“Recently, in the Supreme Court’s gallery, a lawyer said that we were very unloved, or even hated. We are certainly not for the majority of the population. But, of course, the role of counter-majoritarianism is very difficult, it often leads to attitudes of misunderstanding and antipathy”, said Gilmar Mendes.
The minister’s statement took place at the closing ceremony of a congress that brings together civil servants from audit courts from different countries. The event was held in Fortaleza, capital of Ceará.
On September 13, when defending his client and stating that the trial in the Court was “illegitimate”, Sebastião Reis Coelho described the image that he believes the STF ministers have before the population. “I want to say, with great sadness, but I have to tell Your Excellencies, because I am not a man to speak and then say that I didn’t say, that I didn’t say that. On these benches here, on these two sides, ministers, are the most hated people in this country. Unfortunately,” he said.
The lawyer’s statement was rejected by minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the accusations against the Bolsonarists who invaded the buildings of the Três Poderes. Moraes said that the people attacking the Supreme Court are a minority and that the country’s population repudiated the attacks on January 8th.
“These extremists who don’t like the STF are the minority, the minority of the population. And this was demonstrated at the polls and this was demonstrated in the coup acts that a minority carried out and were repudiated by the Brazilian population, which is a serious, dignified population”, stated the minister.
In recent years, episodes of harassment of Supreme Court ministers have been recorded. The most recent case was at the airport in Rome, Italy, involving Moraes. At the time, the magistrate was called a “bandit, communist and bought” and his son was attacked by a group of Brazilians. The Federal Police (PF) investigates the case.
Before last year’s elections, then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) criticized Moraes, calling him a “scoundrel” and “sucker”; Luís Roberto Barroso was also the target of hostility both by the former head of the Executive and by Bolsonarists; and minister Cármen Lúcia’s professional performance was compared to that of a “prostitute”.
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