Minister Cármen Lúcia is the only woman in the current composition of the STF (Supreme Federal Court). Of the 172 ministers who served on the Court over 134 years, only three were women. Alongside Cármen were Ellen Gracie and Rosa Weber.
The minister affirms that positive actions have been decisive for women to obtain “a few small spaces”, but that it is urgent to raise awareness in society of the need to be plural and diverse. “Now we want transformative action.”
“There are competent women in the Brazilian legal field, talented judges, committed to democratic law, independent, with experience in the judicial and legal field, with remarkable legal knowledge and who can see their name considered and accessed to the highest positions in the national judicial system,” he said. Leaf the minister, honored of the year at the Todas 2 Folha/Alandar Awards, in an email interview.
After the retirement of Minister Rosa Weber, in September 2023, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) chose Flávio Dino for this position. Recently, with the departure of Luís Roberto Barroso, the PT member appointed Jorge Messias, which still needs to be examined and approved by the Senate. Among the ten nominations he was able to present during his three mandates, Lula chose only one woman to the Supreme Court, Cármen Lúcia herself.
Before the full court, Cármen frequently cites persistent gender and racial inequalities in Brazilian society. The minister does not spare her colleagues and also draws attention to the differences in treatment of women within colleges.
On September 11 of this year, when the first college of the STF concluded the trial that convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) of attempted coup d’état, the minister was voting when Flávio Dino asked to speak.
“As long as it’s quick,” replied Carmen Lúcia to Dino. “Because we women have been silent for 2,000 years and we want to have the right to speak. But I concede (the aside), as always,” she added.
While presiding over the Supreme Court, the minister also took a position on the issue on certain occasions. During a session in May 2017, after a debate over whose turn it was to vote, Luiz Fux joked with Rosa Weber: “I give the floor for the full vote.”
Cármen Lúcia then referred to a study carried out in the United States, based on the analysis of 15 years of transcripts of pleadings, which showed that, even if ministers use the floor less, they are interrupted much more frequently.
“How do I grant the floor? It is up to her (Rosa Weber) to vote. She is the one who grants, if she wishes, an aside,” Carmen then declared to Fux. And he continued: “A survey was carried out in all the constitutional courts where there are women, the number of times women are sidelined is 18 times higher than among ministers. And Minister Sotomayor (of the American Supreme Court) asked me: ‘how is it going there?’. There, in general, Minister Rosa and I are not allowed to speak, so we are not interrupted.”
Cármen Lúcia currently chairs the TSE (Higher Electoral Court) and commanded the last municipal elections, in 2024.
As for the low representation of women in politics, the minister points to misogyny as a problem that must be faced. “Political violence culminates in women being victims of hateful and violent speech, which affects family members, friends and people in relationships between women, causing a decrease in women’s participation or making them very threatened in their search for political and administrative participation in the public space,” he told the report.
Although women make up the majority of the electorate eligible to vote (52%), only 18% of those elected in the 2024 election were women.
Themes related to the dignity of women are dear to Cármen Lúcia, she says. At the CNJ (National Council of Justice), the minister institutionalized the Justice for Peace at Home Campaign, which determines that the trials of cases of violence against women are prioritized in all states and in the Federal District for three weeks: in March, the week of International Women’s Day; in August, on the occasion of the Maria da Penha law; and in November, through 21 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women.
“The number of trials that have taken place over these ten years is impressive and represents a change that was essential,” the minister said of the campaign launched in 2015.
A series of cases of violence against women have shocked the country in recent days, and statistics show that the episodes have multiplied. Until the beginning of December, the city of São Paulo, for example, recorded 53 cases of femicide this year, a record in the historical series, according to data from the Secretariat of Public Security.
According to the minister, the judiciary is more attentive and an effort has been made to raise awareness among the judiciary.
“Judge training schools have organized courses to increase awareness among the judiciary to judge also from a gender perspective. There is a specialization, in some capitals and in some districts, of courts to try cases of domestic violence. This is a step forward,” he says.
During a meeting at the TSE on the 24th, the minister recalled that poor black women are the most vulnerable to violence and that Brazilian democracy will not reach its fullness as long as the attacks persist. “There is no democracy with inequality, discrimination and violence,” he said.
The minister also expressed concern about maneuvers aimed at weakening the effectiveness of gender quotas in elections. In May 2024, the TSE, under the presidency of Alexandre de Moraes, approved a summary to combat quota fraud.
Cármem Lúcia, then vice-president of the court, welcomed the measure. “This is the fight of my whole life, the fight for general equality.”
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