STF President Fachin Promises Firm Response as Court Crisis Deepens
By Hotspotnews
Brazil’s Supreme Court president, Edson Fachin, moved Friday to contain an unprecedented public clash between two justices, pulling an investigation request out of the long-running Fake News inquiry and calling for that inquiry’s end.
Speaking at a ceremony at the Palácio do Planalto alongside President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Fachin said the facts were being investigated and that the court would follow the Constitution and the law. “There will be no precipitation, nor omission,” he said. “The institutional response will be firm, proportional and rigorous.” He added that no authority stands above the Constitution and that the gravity of the facts “does not authorize shortcuts.”
Fachin tied the episode to three goals of his presidency that he said recent events had made urgent: adoption of a Code of Ethics for the court, the end of the Fake News inquiry, and modernization of the justice system.
The immediate trigger is a dispute between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Justice André Mendonça. Mendonça, who is handling matters linked to the Banco Master case and alleged irregularities in INSS pension deductions, brought to light Federal Police material involving contacts between Moraes and former banker Daniel Vorcaro. Moraes then asked that Mendonça be investigated for alleged abuse of authority, administrative improbity, and related offenses, lodging the request inside Inquiry 4.781 — the Fake News inquiry, which Moraes himself reports.
Fachin ordered that request removed from Inquiry 4.781 and transferred to a separate proceeding under the court’s presidency. He gave the Prosecutor-General’s Office five business days to comment on the admissibility and regularity of the procedure, with a further period for Mendonça to respond. Fachin stressed that the step was instructional only and did not prejudge the accusations.
The Fake News inquiry was opened in 2019, without a conventional lottery of rapporteur, and has remained under Moraes’s control for seven years. It has long been one of the most contested instruments inside the court. Reporting on Friday indicated that some justices now see the crisis as an opening to build a majority to close it.
The picture so far is one of institutional containment rather than a finished verdict. Fachin has centralized both sides of the dispute under his own docket, promised a rigorous process, and used the moment to revive two structural demands: written ethics rules for the court and an end to the inquiry that has defined much of Moraes’s recent tenure. Whether either justice faces formal consequences, and whether the Fake News inquiry is actually shut down, remains to be decided.
Sources: CNN Brasil; O Globo; Valor Econômico; G1; Folha de S.Paulo; Gazeta do Povo; Correio Braziliense; VEJA; Migalhas.
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