Fux votes for the Supreme Court's 'absolute incompetence' to judge the attempted coup case

00:43

Even before concluding his vote in the trial of the main nucleus of the coup plot, Minister Luiz Fux signaled that the vote will be favorable to the defendants - if not for acquittals, then for more lenient sentences than those advocated by the rapporteur, Alexandre de Moraes . Also in his vote, he declared in the plenary session of the First Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) inconsistent positions in relation to himself.

The first was the thesis that the defendants should be tried in another court of law because, as they no longer hold public office, they would not be entitled to special jurisdiction. As columnist Francisco Leali showed, Fux did not defend the same thesis in the trials of the January 8 defendants.

On another front, Fux argued for the complete nullity of the criminal case against the main core of the coup plot, based on preliminary issues—that is, issues that could nullify the case due to technical flaws, such as the discussion of jurisdiction. Even though he said the case should be nullified, the minister went ahead to judge the merits of the charges.

Another inconsistency arises from comparing the minister's stance during the 2012 mensalão trial with that of Fux today. Last decade, he was the minister who most agreed with the case's rapporteur, Joaquim Barbosa, in the convictions handed down to defendants involved in the scheme to buy political support for parliamentarians, which was engineered during Lula's first administration.

In his vote on Wednesday the 10th, Fux stated that judges must rule with"seriousness, equidistance, and impartiality." In 2013, one of the defendants in the mensalão scandal, former Chief of Staff José Dirceu, said he heard Fux promise him an acquittal, but the minister voted to convict.

In a statement released at the time, Fux neither denied nor confirmed the fact: “A Supreme Court Justice does not argue with a defendant,” he declared.

In the Lava Jato messages revealed in 2016, then-prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol celebrated hearing Fux promise full support for the operation. In response, then-judge Sérgio Moro coined the phrase"In Fux we trust." Fux denied the conversation, saying it never took place.

The same Fux who voted to annul the case against Jair Bolsonaro and seven other defendants came out in defense of the Supreme Court in 2021, when he was president of the Court. On September 7 of that year, Bolsonaro escalated his attacks on the justices and incited his followers to disrespect the court's decisions.

In response, Fux said: “Offending the honor of ministers, inciting the population to spread hate speech against the institution of the Supreme Federal Court and encouraging non-compliance with judicial decisions are anti-democratic, illicit and intolerable practices.”

"The Supreme Federal Court will also not tolerate threats to the authority of its decisions. If contempt for judicial decisions occurs at the initiative of the head of any of the branches of government, this attitude, in addition to representing an attack on democracy, constitutes a criminal offense," he concluded four years ago.