03/12/2023 – 19:10
Minister Alexandre de Moraes, president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), fined two users whose profiles were suspended on X (formerly Twitter) for fake news about the polls and, after recovering their accounts, they returned to attack the Electoral Court. The fine can reach R$600,000 for each person.
The users are Wagner Pereira and Rita de Cássia Serrão. Their profiles were blocked in November 2022, by court order. Moraes authorized the reactivation of the accounts in January, but imposed a fine of R$20,000 per day as a condition for lifting the embargo if they republished “messages instigating or encouraging a military coup, attacking the Electoral Court and the democratic rule of law” .
New posts that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2022 elections were published on the accounts on May 1st. “Elections taken, a fact that they themselves cannot prove otherwise (sic)”, wrote Wagner in one of the publications. Rita stated that “they did not win the election but rather took power”.
The publications were removed by X on June 1st, following an order from Moraes. At the time, the minister listed eight links to be deleted and lifted the confidentiality of the files. The fine established in the decision refers to the month in which the content was aired.
Although they are repeat offenders, users were not notified about the risk of fines. One of the documents in the process states that the Processing Coordination “certifies that it has not located an address for subpoena of those involved”.
O Estadão contacted the TSE to find out whether or not the collection of the fine is conditional on prior citation and is awaiting a response.
For lawyer Maíra Recchia, a specialist in Electoral Law, the fine cannot be applied without the knowledge of those involved.
“We came very close to a coup, so the Democratic Rule of Law and the fairness of the electoral process need protection. On the other hand, people only fail to comply with what they are aware of. This judicial determination has to come through legal means, whether via summons, when it is the first act of calling the party in the process, or a subpoena”, he explains. “When they don’t exist, I don’t see how to impose a fine. A protective factor would be the removal of the content.”
Supreme Court threatens CPI
Moraes’ decision comes public at a time when the Court is under attack. In the Chamber, opposition deputies managed to gather 171 signatures to establish the CPI for abuse of authority. The president of the TSE and also a minister of the Federal Supreme Court has been the target of the main criticism.
On another front, the Senate approved a legislative proposal to prevent monocratic decisions by Supreme Court judges against bills voted on in the Legislature. The proposal went to the Chamber of Deputies for consideration.
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