Judge Alexandre de Moraes walks behind Lula, the Brazilian President, in one act in Brasilia the day after Bolsonaro attacked the Three Powers. UESLEI MARCELINO (Portal)
If there’s one person on the planet that Brazilian Bolsonaristas hate more than President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – whom they detest while acknowledging his cunning – it’s Alexandre de Moraes, 54, a judge-turned-superhero the country has become Brazilian Democrats. The togado is the terror of both the far-right who stormed the institutional heart and those who nurtured the invasion. Supreme Court Justice Moraes has agreed to investigate whether former President Jair Bolsonaro encouraged the invasion. He hoards monumental power while chaining unprecedented decisions in his mission to neutralize Bolsonarianism’s attacks on the institutional framework and uphold the rule of law. At Lula’s inauguration, he was greeted like a rock star. But the same analysts and editorials that praise his bold and determined stance point to the danger that his decisions could set a dangerous precedent.
In the hours following the attack in Plaza de los Tres Poderes, Judge Moraes took a number of vigorous measures. He ordered the arrest of those arrested in the act in the Presidium, in Congress and in the building where he himself works, the Supreme Court and also the Bolsonaristas of the coup plotter outside the army headquarters in Brasilia. Almost 1,500 people… one of the largest raids in living memory.
In a country where provisional detention is rare unless you are poor, it has provisionally sent nearly a thousand suspects to prison who could never have imagined being in such a situation and who never stop complaining about their to complain about treatment. “Don’t let the terrorists who rioted on Sunday and are now in jail think the jail is a summer camp. And that they don’t think the institutions will falter,” he told the press at an event after promising to punish all those involved: “Those who committed, planned, funded, and encouraged through acts or Omission”. Almost 500 more people are free of charge.
The Supreme Court Justice intends to formally charge them with terrorism, although the Attorney General’s Office does not find it clear that the attackers’ actions meet the legal definition. Ex-President Bolsonaro, who is still in the US, is accused of promoting the invasion for a video he posted on the networks not before but two days after the attack and deleted within hours. On the same afternoon of the invasion, he made the unprecedented decision to remove Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha, a Bolsonaro ally, ex officio and for 90 days. He faces charges of collusion and omission, as does the other political leader of the DF security forces, a former Bolsonaro minister who has been detained — and in silence — since surrendering to police after returning from the US. Among the few he has said, he forgot his cell phone in Florida.
Joel Pinheiro da Fonseca, columnist for Folha de S. Paulo, described the Democrats’ dilemma on Monday: “It is not contradictory to say at the same time: 1) without the sometimes questionable decisions of Alexandre de Moraes, Brazilian democracy would be endangered. 2) the precedents setting these decisions are themselves risks to democracy.”
The magistrate comes from the world of justice, but has been at the forefront of politics. He was a fugitive justice minister for centre-right Michel Temer before being sent to the highest court aged just 48 when one of the judges died in an accident. Previously he was Minister of Public Security of São Paulo. A heavily armed supporter, he was known for his sheriff-like manner.
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Moraes is undoubtedly the Supreme Court Justice with the greatest political impact in recent years. It focuses heavily on media cases, such as the one investigating the machine used to spread Bolsonarismo hoaxes – the so-called hate cabinet – or now those emerging from the invasion of institutions. And he was in the news every day during the last election campaign because he had to preside over the Superior Electoral Tribunal, which was responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of the elections in a very close race full of hoaxes.
In a country with lax and long deadlines, it took less than 24 hours to analyze the defeated Bolsonaro’s appeal against the election result. He refused, accused him of bad faith for continuing to insist on fraud without evidence, and fined his party. His pulse did not tremble, then and now, to ruthlessly silence the social media accounts of influential Bolsonaro supporters with millions of followers whom he accuses of promoting attacks on democracy with disinformation. The fact that he did this without prior notice or without the possibility of appeal brought him accusations of censorship, including from the American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has lived in Brazil for many years.
“Supreme Court activism poses a worrying risk,” the newspaper O Globo headlined in one of its editorials last June. As is usual in Brazil’s Supreme Court, Moraes makes an infinite number of pension decisions individually, but for now, the majority of those on the Supreme Court support her thereafter.
The previous president’s supporters consider him an all-powerful dictator and Bolsonaro himself came to insult him in a massive rally with all the letters. “Go away, Alexandre de Moraes! Stop being a scoundrel, stop oppressing and censoring the Brazilian people,” he proclaimed on Independence Day 2021. The extreme right, then president, had already launched an offensive against the institutions, threatening to overturn the sentences to be disregarded by Moraes.
His accelerated rise to Olympus is reminiscent of the career of another former judge who was eliminated from the race. Sérgio Moro, 50, once a revered anti-corruption hero and Bolsonaro’s minister, fell out of favor for failing to bring Lula to justice impartially, which is why the current president’s trials fell apart like a piece of sugar and he was able to return to office. Moro is now discreetly taking refuge in the Senate seat he won in the last election.
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