The Supreme Court’s Praetorian Guard: Serious Persecution of a Journalist to Protect the Powerful

The Supreme Court’s Praetorian Guard: Serious Persecution of a Journalist to Protect the Powerful

By Hotspotnews

In a healthy democracy, the judiciary exists to restrain power, not to shield it. Yet in Brazil today, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes continues to act as the enforcer for his colleagues, turning the highest court into something closer to a self-protecting guild than an impartial guardian of the Constitution. What we are witnessing is serious persecution of a journalist for the crime of scrutinizing the powerful.

The latest episode is revealing. A journalist in Maranhão, Luís Pablo, published reports alleging that Justice Flávio Dino and his family were using official vehicles for private purposes. Rather than treating this as a matter for ordinary investigation or public debate, Moraes ordered a search-and-seizure operation against the journalist earlier this year on suspicion of “persecution.” Now, using data pulled from that journalist’s devices, Moraes has authorized further searches against the alleged source—an ex-state security official and political adversary of Dino—and the journalist’s lawyer.

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The journalist himself has stated the obvious: the fact he denounced was never properly investigated. He became the one under investigation instead. Veteran jurist Wálter Maierovitch has correctly described this pattern. He argues that Moraes functions as the head of a “Praetorian Guard” for the Court: a loyal force that mobilizes police powers whenever a minister or their relatives feel threatened. Cases involving criticism or scrutiny of STF members are routinely funneled to Moraes, who then deploys investigative tools with little effective external check. Ordinary citizens and journalists do not enjoy the same privileged protection.

This is not neutral law enforcement. It is institutional self-defense carried out through the machinery of the state. Source secrecy—a cornerstone of free journalism protected by the Constitution—is treated as expendable when it inconveniences a justice. The same Court that lectures the country about democracy shows far less enthusiasm for accountability when the target is one of its own. Lower-court judges face disciplinary mechanisms; Supreme Court ministers effectively do not. Impeachment remains a remote political possibility rather than a real constraint.

Conservatives have long warned that concentrated, unaccountable power corrupts. When a small group of unelected officials can investigate critics, seize devices, and pursue sources under the banner of “security,” the result is not the rule of law—it is rule by law, selectively applied. The powerful are insulated; those who question them are investigated and persecuted. Double standards become the operating principle.

Dino’s defenders insist the reports involved sensitive security arrangements and possible illegal monitoring. Even if true, the remedy is not for a fellow justice to act as both protector and investigator. Transparent processes, ordinary jurisdiction, and respect for press freedoms would better serve public confidence. Instead, the pattern reinforces the perception that the STF protects its members first and the public second—and that serious persecution of journalists is an acceptable cost of that protection.

A free society cannot function when the highest court operates as a closed circle with its own enforcer. Maierovitch’s “Praetorian Guard” warning is not hyperbole. It is a diagnosis of institutional decay, and the treatment of Luís Pablo is a clear example of how that decay manifests as the persecution of those who dare to report on the powerful. Brazilians who value limited government, equal application of the law, and a press that can scrutinize officials without fear should recognize this for what it is: the steady expansion of judicial authority at the expense of republican norms.