The Federal Court has been, without exaggeration, one of the pillars that have prevented the institutional collapse of the country in recent years. When other powers hesitated, failed or flirted with the rupture attempted by Jair Bolsonaro, it was up to the STF to impose limits, assert rules of the game and ensure that democracy survived its most critical moment since re-democratization. This historical role is undeniable and must be recognized.
It is precisely for this reason that the court cannot behave as a body insulated from criticism, public scrutiny or minimal accountability mechanisms. The strength that the Supreme Court has accumulated, by necessity and by the omission of others, now demands a price: the greater the protagonism, the greater the obligation of transparency, restraint and exemplarity. Recent controversies are not incidental details or noise fabricated by the enemies of democracy, as many try to have us believe.
When the information becomes public, revealed by columnist Malu Gaspar, of GLOBO, according to which Alexandre de Moraes, precisely one of the most active magistrates in the clashes which ensured the validity of democracy, requested the Central Bank to deal with the case of Banco Master, and there was no peremptory refusal from him or from the monetary authority, the seriousness was extreme. Especially since the office of the minister’s wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes, holds a million dollar contract to act in the interest of Daniel Vorcaro’s bank in difficulty.
It doesn’t matter how the topic was broached, whether amid discussions about the effects of the Magnitisky Act arbitrarily applied to Moraes and his family or in isolation. There are no circumstances under which Moraes, who is not the recorder of actions involving the Master (and he could not), can speak about this matter. This is not to presume illegality or adhere to rhetoric that attempts to delegitimize the vital actions of the Supreme Court as a whole. The problem is simpler and more serious. In mature democracies, the appearance of independence and impartiality matters as much as actual independence.
Public trust is not only based on the strict legality of actions, but also on the perception of the majority of society that clear rules apply to and are respected by all, particularly by those at the top of the institutional hierarchy who have the constitutional prerogative to impose respect for the law on the entire population.
When decisions that directly impact the political and economic system are taken without sufficient transparency, when the personal relationships of ministers enter gray areas, such as the blatant absurdity of Dias Toffoli going to attend a football match in another country on a plane belonging to lawyers working on the cases in which he works, the court fuels the distrust of which he later claims to be a victim. And, in doing so, it weakens precisely the moral authority that was decisive in containing the authoritarian adventures of Bolsonaro and Caterva.
It is in this context that the discussion on a code of conduct for ministers of the Supreme Court must cease to be a taboo or an isolated flag of the President of the Court, Edson Fachin, and become an immediate necessity. Not as an instrument of political retaliation or institutional shrinking of judicial power, nor as a concession to anti-STF discourse, but as an affirmation of a commitment to general republican norms.
Clear rules on interactions with authorities, relationships with interested parties, use of private benefits and transparency of agendas do not diminish the court. On the contrary: they protect you. Brazilian democracy does not need a cornered Supreme Court, nor a bloated Supreme Court sheltered from control.
The court that had the courage to face real threats to the constitutional order must have the grandeur to recognize that its extraordinary power requires restricting access to citizenship. Defending the STF also means defending that it is strong enough to obey the rules – and respected enough that it does not need to hide from it or shout that it is being persecuted every time it is accused of doing so.
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