So Lewandowski can what Moro couldn't?

Criticism rained down when Bolsonaro placed Sergio Moro in the Ministry of Justice. And what do they say now, when Lula gives Lewandowski the same position? Brazil really is a place full of surprises and where the world takes many turns. In 2019, the wheel of fortune took the then federal judge Sergio Moro, acclaimed anti-corruption hero by the right, to the post of Minister of Justice in the government of then President Jair Messias Bolsonaro.

There was great fury on the left: can the Lava Jato judge, who put then-candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in prison, take a position in the government of the candidate who benefited from the judge's action? Obviously this smelled bad.

And not only did it disqualify the work of Lava Jato as a whole, but it was a nail in the coffin of the fight against corruption in Brazil.

Shot in the foot

Then, the wheel of fortune took Sérgio Moro down. His senatorial mandate is expected to be revoked soon. The transition from judge to politician, which seemed promising, now seems doomed to failure.

Without wanting to go into the merits of the decisions Moro took against Lula, I always thought his political ambitions were a shot in the foot. Not only his, but Brazilian democracy. Justice in Brazil already has a strong way of acting politically, which does not, in my opinion, contribute to strengthening democratic institutions.

I know Bolsonaro didn't care about this, but Moro should have had more common sense and antennae for this. In democracy, it is not enough to play fair: you need to look clean.

Déjà vu

And what about the fact that Lula placed former STF judge Ricardo Lewandowski in the same ministry that Moro occupied? As a judge, Lewandowski gave several decisions favorable to Lula. He voted in favor of the understanding that a convict can be arrested only after his case has become final.

Later, Lewandowski not only gave Lula's defense access to the evidence in the cases against the PT member, but also decreed the suspension of a pending criminal case and three investigations. Thus, he repeated the performance he had during Mensalão, when he issued favorable decisions to the PT defendants. As he was appointed, in 2006, by Lula, parts of society understood his actions as partial.

In February, Lewandowski goes to the Ministry of Justice, to replace Flávio Dino, who takes the opposite path, from minister to STF judge. Bearing in mind all the criticisms of Bolsonaro's appointment of Moro, Lula's choice of Lewandowski seems like a déjà vu of switched signals.

Moro himself commented on Lewandowski's choice on his account on platform X: “It is therefore understood that accepting a position in a ministry is not and should never have been a cause for suspicion.”

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Thomas Milz left his Protestant parents' home almost 20 years ago and moved to the most Catholic country in the world. He has a master's degree in Political Science and History of Latin America and, for 15 years, he has worked as a journalist and photographer for outlets such as the KNA news agency and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper. He is the father of a girl born in 2012 in Salvador. After a decade in São Paulo, he has lived in Rio de Janeiro for four years.

The text reflects the author's opinion, not necessarily that of DW.