Once Again, the STF Fails Justice: The Pattern Is Impossible to Ignore
By Hotspotnews
It is difficult to express the depth of disappointment that comes with watching Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court repeatedly choose procedure over substance, protection over accountability, and political convenience over equal application of the law. The latest decision by Court President Edson Fachin to archive a petition seeking an investigation into Justice Alexandre de Moraes is not an isolated technical ruling. It is another chapter in a well-documented pattern.
According to multiple reports from Folha de S.Paulo, CNN Brasil, BBC News Brasil, and other outlets, Fachin dismissed the request on the grounds that the private petitioners lacked standing to file it directly with the Court. He did not examine the merits. Those merits involve a roughly R$130 million legal-services contract between Banco Master and the law firm of Viviane Barci de Moraes, the justice’s wife, along with messages recovered from the phone of the bank’s former controller, Daniel Vorcaro. Metadata reviewed by O Estado de S. Paulo and confirmed by CNN Brasil indicated that Moraes himself was associated with the last edit of the contract file. The law firm has stated that Moraes was consulted only for a compliance check. That explanation has not been tested in any substantive proceeding.
This is the same Court that, in 2021, annulled the Lava Jato convictions of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Those convictions, issued after years of investigation into Petrobras contracts and political corruption, were set aside primarily on jurisdictional grounds—the Curitiba court was deemed improper, and the cases were ordered sent to Brasília—along with references to procedural issues highlighted by the Vaza Jato leaks. The practical result was the restoration of Lula’s political rights and his return to the presidency. Defenders called it a necessary correction of process. Critics saw a Court that found a way to neutralize the most consequential anti-corruption operation in Brazilian history when it reached the highest levels of one political camp.
The contrast with the treatment of Jair Bolsonaro and his family is stark and has been extensively reported. Moraes has served as rapporteur in cases that produced Bolsonaro’s conviction and long sentence related to the January 8 events and alleged coup plotting. He has ordered passport seizures, electronic monitoring, house arrest, and restrictions on family visits. More recently, Flávio Bolsonaro has faced multiple inquiries at the STF, including one concerning the financing of the film Dark Horse by Vorcaro’s Banco Master and another involving alleged money-laundering links with a lawyer also under investigation. Moraes ordered the seizure of Flávio’s passports. These proceedings continue while questions about the justice’s own family’s business dealings with the same banker are archived without examination of the underlying facts.
The pattern is not subtle. When the allegations touch a sitting justice and his family’s commercial relationship with a figure at the center of a major fraud investigation, the response is a procedural dismissal that never reaches the substance. When the target is a former president from the opposing political camp or his son—now a leading opposition figure—the investigations proceed, measures are imposed, and the Court does not hesitate. Reports from Reuters, AP, Folha, G1, and BBC have documented both sides of this disparity for years.
Brazilians have watched the same institution that once celebrated Lava Jato later dismantle its results, while simultaneously expanding its own reach into political speech, social media, and the private affairs of its critics. The archiving of the Moraes petition, without any review of the contract, the messages, or the metadata, simply confirms what many already concluded: equal justice is not the operating principle. The disappointment is not rhetorical. It is the accumulated weight of repeated decisions in which the Court protects its own while pursuing those who challenge it. If Brazilians had any doubts of what they did to Jair Bolsonaro, and were planning to do with Flavio, here is the proof. The biggest coup that the supreme court operated to save their wrongdoing. The repulsive ministers cover for each other and for the communist in power.
Sources for the underlying facts include reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, CNN Brasil, BBC News Brasil, G1, O Estado de S. Paulo, Reuters, and the Associated Press.
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