Bolsonaro’s nominee votes in favor of favoring Daniel Silveira; Moraes considers the possibility of cited articles being understood as fake news
Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), questioned Minister André Mendonça if the people mentioned in his vote, in favor of the pardon granted to the former deputy Daniel Silveira (PTB), were “jurists“.
Mendonça judged constitutional the grace granted to Silveira by the former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The Supreme Court analyzes actions that ask for the nullity of the benefit, and already has a majority to invalidate the pardon. In addition to Mendonça, so far, only Nunes Marques has disagreed with the rapporteur, Minister Rosa Weber, and the score is 6 to 2.
At the session, Mendonça recalled that he was in favor of Silveira’s conviction in April 2022, when the Court decided to imprison the former congressman for 8 years and 9 months. However, the minister said that after the trial “voices emerged in society saying that the penalty would have been excessive“.
He quoted a newspaper publication The State of S. Paulo in which researcher Fernando Abrucio stated that the penalty was “exaggerated”.
Then he quoted a speech by Fernando Capez also considering a possible exaggeration in the sentence. Moraes then interrupts Mendonça’s speech to say that Capez “[era] at the time, a candidate for deputy for the [então] president“. In fact, Capez was a candidate in 2022 for federal office for São Paulo, affiliated with União Brasil.
Mendonça continues with yet another quote from a report published by journalist Valdo Cruz, from the G1 portalwhen Moraes comments: “not a lawyer either“, referring to the journalist.
Then, Mendonça mentions the possibility that the Court will consider his citations as “fake news”, to which Moraes replies: “Taking into account who is being judged, it is possible“.
Watch the discussion excerpt (2min47s):
UNDERSTAND THE JUDGMENT
Silveira was sentenced by the Court, on April 20, 2022, to 8 years and 9 months in prison, in a closed initial regime, for statements against STF ministers. The following day, Bolsonaro announced, in a live on social networks, which would grant a presidential pardon to the former congressman, who is in prison.
Constitutional grace can be used to forgive, for example, serious crimes and physical violence, with the exception of heinous crimes, such as drug trafficking, terrorism and torture, and crimes against the democratic order.
The analysis of the case began in the physical plenary last Thursday (April 27). the parties Rede, PDT, Cidadania and Psol ask for the nullity of grace. The Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, defended that it is not up to the Supreme Court to restrict the competence of the president.
The acronyms allege that the pardon was granted to a person who had not yet been convicted in a final and unappealable decision (when there is no longer any appeal). They also argue that the benefit was not in the public interest, and Bolsonaro, therefore, would not have respected the principles of impersonality and morality.
The individual pardon granted by Bolsonaro to Silveira is a rare act since the country’s redemocratization. In 1945, a similar measure was decreed by President José Linhares to 2 Italian citizens.
watch the Power Explains on constitutional grace (4min7s):
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