Ministers have maintained work during periods of recess, in an increasingly consolidated trend that allows them to maintain control over processes and reduce the power concentrated in the president of the court.
The recess duty is the responsibility of the presidency and has been divided. The president, , served from December 20th to 31st, 2024 and will return to office between the 20th and 31st of this month. The vice president, , took office on the 1st and continues until Sunday, January 19th. But they are not the only ones active.
The majority maintained activities during this period. In total, counting those on duty, at least 8 of the 11 magistrates continued working: in addition to Barroso and Fachin, , , , , and .
The last two are dedicated to specific processes. Dino acts in actions related to parliamentary amendments and fires in the Amazon and Pantanal, while Zanin decides on cases of investigations into the sale of judicial decisions.
Important measures have been taken. and, in recent days, he took charge of the analysis of the US inauguration. He rejected the former president’s request this Thursday (16).
to investigate irregularities in the release of amendments, and in the country through a license from Rio de Janeiro.
In a note, the STF says that ministers have been working during recess for years and, more recently, technological tools have allowed them to dispatch from wherever they are. It also states that magistrates do not receive additional payments for maintaining their activities.
Lawyers and law professors heard by the Sheet classify this trend of Supreme Court ministers taking time off as something that is here to stay and that could impact power dynamics in the court.
Georges Abboud, lawyer and professor at the IDP, says that this has occurred since at least 2021, when he presided over the court. And, although it is too early to consider it crystallized, the trend has been consolidated year after year, with increasing membership, even from newly appointed ministers, he says.
According to him, one of the reasons for this phenomenon may derive from a conflict of decisions, in which a minister grants an injunction and the president then revokes the measure. Keeping the offices active would be a safeguard for the rapporteurs themselves to analyze the requests.
In 2018, one day before the recess, the day before the final judgment and ordered the release of all people in these circumstances, a decision could benefit Lula at the time.
The magistrate submitted the decision to the court plenary, declaring himself qualified to report the process and vote, but only in the following year, at the opening of the first judicial semester of 2019. .
In 2020, the same Toffoli, in office as president, set . Days later, Fux, then deputy and rapporteur of the processes on the matter, for an indefinite period.
“There is a hollowing out of the power of the presidency”, but this is not “a pernicious dynamic for the court”, continues Abboud. On the contrary, he says, because it prevents a “war of injunctions” and allows the request to be examined by exactly those who would do it outside the recess.
Doctor in constitutional law from USP, lawyer and professor Wagner Gundim says that the issue has to do with consolidation of power. “You will even notice that power circulates in these large niches”, he says, pointing out Gilmar Mendes and Moraes as poles in this sense.
To prevent colleagues from taking matters into their own hands in cases for which they are rapporteurs, ministers give up time off. “It’s not even for personal satisfaction. It’s more a question of distribution of power”, says the lawyer. “They do this to try to keep the power in their own hands.”
From another perspective, PUC-SP constitutional law professor Marcelo Figueiredo says that the STF has accumulated many powers over the years, resulting in an increase in the procedural volume. Continuing to work would, therefore, serve to clean up the collection.
“The recess is for lawyers and people in the Justice Department to rest and take a breather to return to work with more energy. But there is no way to do that, because even with all the advice that ministers have, the volume of cases is still very large,” he says .
Furthermore, says the professor, as there are no deadlines in the Supreme Court for the minister to release the vote (except when there is a request for review or a more specific situation), “the sooner he reduces the volume of cases he has to judge , better”.
