Fux Restores Order After a Minister Tried to Build His Own Electoral Court
By Hotspotnews
Brazil’s Supreme Court just witnessed something that should alarm anyone who still believes courts operate under rules rather than personal preference. On September 28, Justice Luiz Fux suspended a ruling issued the day before by Justice Flávio Dino and put both decisions before the full Court. The episode is not merely another intra-court spat. It is a textbook case of a justice converting an old file into a private, standing tribunal over the electoral system one week before the first round of a presidential election.
The facts are straightforward. On September 25 the Superior Electoral Court, through Justice André Mendonça, ordered platforms to take down posts that repeated a claim already classified as notoriously false: that Flávio Bolsonaro or his family intended to strip Nossa Senhora Aparecida of her title as Patroness of Brazil. The TSE even drew a careful line, leaving satire, criticism, and genuine religious debate untouched. That order was already headed to the TSE plenary.
Instead of waiting, a comedian whose post had been removed filed an incidental petition inside an unrelated May 2026 complaint sitting on Dino’s desk. That original case involved a Paraná regional court and a video about Deltan Dallagnol. The new petition involved different parties, different facts, different legal rules, and a different court. Dino accepted it anyway. He quashed the TSE order, told platforms to restore the material, and—most importantly—declared that further “extensions” could be requested in the same file. Within hours another party used that invitation to attack TSE administrative acts that had nothing to do with the original complaint.
Fux called this what it is. The petition was a new constitutional complaint that should have been randomly assigned. By treating it as a mere extension, Dino created a permanent channel that bypasses the lottery, the other ten justices, and the presidency of the Court. Brazilian procedure calls this forum shopping. The Constitution calls it a violation of the natural judge. The Court’s own internal rules (RISTF articles 66–70) exist precisely to prevent one minister from becoming a universal court of appeal over electoral matters.
The substance is secondary to the method, but it is not irrelevant. Fux noted that the TSE had already found the core claim false. He asked a simple question: does it make sense for the Supreme Court to order the republication of content already recognized as untrue? He also reminded colleagues that the Court’s own binding theses on platform liability expressly reserved the specialized competence and resolutions of the Electoral Court.
This is not an argument about whether any particular candidate should win. It is an argument about whether electoral rules are applied by the institution created for that purpose or by whichever justice a litigant can reach first. When a single minister can open a side door and invite the world to walk through it, the distinction between a court and a political actor collapses.
Both decisions now go to the plenary. That is the correct place for them. The Court should close the procedural loophole, reaffirm that reclamations are not personal dockets, and restore the TSE’s authority over propaganda disputes that arise days before an election. Collegiality is not a courtesy. It is the only thing that keeps eleven justices from becoming eleven separate governments.
#RuleOfLaw #JuizNatural #STF #TSE #ForumShopping #ElectoralIntegrity #Colegialidade
Sources: STF monocratic decision of Justice Luiz Fux in RE 1.057.258 MC/MG (28 September 2026); TSE decisions of Justice André Mendonça in Representation 0602260-84.2026.6.00.0000 (25 September 2026); Rcl 95.295 extension order of Justice Flávio Dino (27 September 2026); STF Internal Rules arts. 66–70; STF Themes 533 and 987.