The Audacity of Judicial Tyranny: Alexandre de Moraes and the STF’s Selective “Justice”
In the hallowed halls of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), where robes are meant to symbolize impartiality and the rule of law, a farce is unfolding that exposes the rot at the heart of our institutions. On January 12, 2026, Poder360 reported that Minister Alexandre de Moraes is mulling over launching an official inquiry into suspected illegal access to the banking data of at least two STF justices—potentially including his own—by agents from the Federal Revenue Service (Receita Federal) and the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf). This comes amid the smoldering ruins of the Banco Master scandal, where leaks revealed multimillion-dollar contracts tied to Moraes’ wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes, and her law firm, worth around R$129 million over three years. Suddenly, when the spotlight turns inward, the champions of unchecked surveillance cry foul over privacy violations. The hypocrisy is staggering, a blatant display of the audacity to hide behind the robe while demanding accountability from everyone else.
For years, Moraes has wielded his gavel like a sledgehammer against conservatives, Bolsonaro supporters, and anyone daring to question the STF’s expanding grip on power. Under the guise of “defending democracy,” he has authorized countless breaches of banking and telecommunications secrecy—quebras de sigilo bancário e telemático—that have ensnared politicians, businessmen, journalists, and ordinary citizens. Remember the sprawling “fake news” inquiry (Inquérito 4781) from 2019 onward? It started as a probe into threats against the court but ballooned into a perpetual witch hunt, with Moraes greenlighting financial data dives on pro-Bolsonaro figures like Luciano Hang of Havan and Edgard Corona of Smart Fit. In 2020, he ordered Receita Federal to hand over tax records of bolsonarista deputies such as Bia Kicis. By 2022, at the request of allies like Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, he froze accounts and pierced the financial veils of entrepreneurs from Coco Bambu and Multiplan, all accused of funding “anti-democratic” efforts.
The pattern is relentless and one-sided. In 2023, Moraes didn’t hesitate to authorize international banking probes into Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle, scrutinizing crowdfunding for their campaigns. Post-January 8, 2023, riots, hundreds faced preemptive account blocks and data seizures, often without concrete evidence—just suspicions framed as threats to institutions. These aren’t isolated incidents; they’re the standard operating procedure for a justice system that picks its targets based on political alignment. Conservatives and right-wing voices are persecuted with zeal, their privacy shredded in the name of protecting the very court that now shields itself from similar scrutiny.
Yet, when whispers emerge of unauthorized access to STF ministers’ data—possibly linked to the Banco Master liquidation in late 2025, where Moraes allegedly pressured Central Bank officials and his colleague Dias Toffoli yanked the case upward to the STF under maximum secrecy—the response is telling. No swift external investigation, no calls for transparency from the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PGR), which quickly archived any whiff of wrongdoing in the wife’s contract. Instead, Moraes contemplates a self-directed inquérito, turning the investigative lens outward on state agencies while keeping the court’s own entanglements buried. It’s the ultimate double standard: different sets of truth, convenient and tailored to their agenda. When it’s Bolsonaro allies or conservative influencers, endless digging is justified as democratic defense. But touch the toga elite, and it’s an assault warranting institutional retaliation.
This isn’t justice; it’s dictatorship cloaked in judicial tyranny. The STF, under Moraes’ influence, has morphed into a super-branch that self-investigates, self-absolves, and selectively prosecutes. They’ve blurred the separation of powers, weaponizing inquiries to silence dissent while protecting their own from the fallout of scandals like Banco Master—where family ties to a failed bank raise questions of conflict and influence-peddling. Brazilians are left with a system where the powerful accuse and persecute at will, demanding submission from the masses while exempting themselves. The pearl-clutching over their own data breaches, after years of authorizing the same against others, reeks of entitlement and abuse.
Conservatives have long warned of this judicial overreach, a slow erosion of freedoms under the banner of fighting “extremism.” It’s time for reckoning: congressional oversight, reforms to curb these endless inquéritos, and a return to true impartiality. Without it, Brazil risks descending further into a regime where robes replace crowns, and tyranny masquerades as law. The audacity is not just in the hiding—it’s in the brazen demand that we accept this farce as justice.