Accusations against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes are part of political disputes, says a Brazilian law professor

Brasil de Fato

Far-right parliamentarians want to call for the impeachment of Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Senator Eduardo Girão (Novo Party) told the Brazilian newspaper Estadão that the signatures for the impeachment petition will be collected by September 7 and that the petition will be filed on September 9.

The action comes after the release of a story by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on Tuesday (13) showing that Moraes allegedly used the Superior Electoral Court (TSE, in Portuguese) unofficially to produce reports against allies of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

These reports would have been used to support Moraes’ decisions in the so-called fake news investigation conducted by the Supreme Court. Folha’s story had access to six gigabytes of messages exchanged between Moraes’ office at the Supreme Court and the TSE’s department responsible for combating disinformation, which at the time was headed by Moraes himself.

In response, Moraes’ office issued a statement saying that “all the procedures were official, regular and duly documented in the inquiries and investigations underway at the Supreme Court, with the full participation of the Attorney General’s Office.”

The statement also highlights that the TSE has police power and, therefore, can report illegal activities. To comment on the matter, the Central do Brasil show spoke on Wednesday (14) to Luiz Felipe Osório, professor of law and International Affairs at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ, in Portuguese).

According to him, the courts do have the possibility of investigating certain situations, but in Moraes’ case, the discussion, he says, is much more political than about legal specifics.

“It’s always worth noting that the dispute over Alexandre de Moraes and significant portions of the far right isn’t new. These disputes have been going on since the Bolsonaro government. At least from the final half of the Bolsonaro government onwards, there have been disputes between this far-right group and Alexandre de Moraes. In my opinion, this dispute is based on divisions that the bourgeoisie has here in Brazil.”

Luiz Felipe points out that Moraes represents a bourgeoisie very close to so-called financial capital – banks –, “while Bolsonaro represents the commercial capital, less associated with the international capital.”

According to the expert, the dispute is taking place within the bourgeoisie. “What I always like to point out is that, amid this dispute, there is a fratricidal dispute within the bourgeoisie, and it is up to the Brazilian left to be constantly very attentive to this so as not to end up making a political assessment and taking the wrong side in these situations.”

The full interview (in Portuguese) by reporter Luana Ibelli is available on Wednesday’s edition of Central do Brasil, which is available on Brasil de Fato’s YouTube channel.

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