Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) on Tuesday named former Operation Lava Jato judge Sergio Moro, now a senator, as a defendant. The decision to make Moro the defendant was made unanimously by the five judges of the First Panel of the STF late in the evening local time, already at night in Lisbon.
The STF judges accepted the complaint filed against Moro by the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) Paulo Gonet, who accuses the former judge of defaming fellow judge Gilmar Mendes of the Supreme Court. During the Santos Populares party in 2023, Sergio Moro was filmed saying that Gilmar Mendez, currently the most senior judge of the STF, was selling court decisions, namely habeas corpus, obtaining “gloves” for the release of prisoners or the release of people from litigation.
Sergio Moro said after the video’s outcry on social media that his sentence was delivered in the context of a joke with other people in the middle of a party and that it was not a formal accusation. But regarding PGR, Moro made a very serious accusation and, out of his own free will and with full knowledge of what he was doing, slandered the dean of the STF.
The rapporteur of the case at the STF, Judge Carmen Lucia, took the same line and stated, in her opinion, that even in jest, accusations of such seriousness cannot be brought forward. “The allegation that his speech was made in a humorous context obviously does not give rise to an insult to the honor of the magistrate, much less can it justify the crime of libel,” wrote Carmen Lucia in her opinion justifying the acceptance of the complaint against Moro, and his opinion was approved by other members of the First Commission.
This is another problem for former judge Bolsonaro and former minister of justice, who is still facing other trials in the National Council of Justice, the body responsible for the Brazilian judiciary, and in the STF itself, where all his decisions as judge Lava Jato have already been annulled from – for accusations of suspicion and bias. In the political sphere, which he took up after leaving the judiciary, Sergio Moro also faces problems, even having been freed last month from a case in the TSE, the Supreme Electoral Court, which could have annulled his senatorial mandate for abuse of economic power during the campaign that elected it in 2022.
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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