The decision of the (Federal Supreme Court), which, keeping cases of authorities in court after they left the positions, made room for a series of criminal actions against politicians who were processing in the first instance to return to the court.
Cases involving former parliamentarians and former ministers, for example, have already started returning to the court. The change has occurred from both lawsuits and lawsuits, and also by decisions made of office (without external provocation) by magistrates.
The procedures for these processes to return to the Supreme Court began in the cases surrounding, which acted in the early terms of and (both of), the former deputy, who was arrested in, and the former minister, who commanded education in the government ().
The Supreme Court decided to expand the trial ended on March 11, to keep the investigations of authorities even after they leave the positions.
The victorious thesis was proposed by the minister. She defines that the special forum “subsists even after the departure from office, even if the inquiry or criminal action is initiated after its exercise”.
The change of understanding is one of the reasons for maintaining.
The Supreme Court itself does not yet have a precise survey of how many and what processes will return to be judged by the Court due to the change of understanding.
In the case of Paulo Bernardo, the action that is being confidential in the Federal Court in São Paulo accuses the former minister of receiving bribes when he was holder of planning under Lula, from 2005 to 2010, to hire the software company consist.
According to the Federal Public Prosecution Service, the scheme would have continued in the following years, when he became Minister of Communications of Dilma.
The case is, an offshoot of the Lava Jato. Paulo Bernardo has always denied any involvement in the scheme.
In the process that runs in the Federal Court in Sao Paulo, the defense of the former minister asked the case to be sent to the Supreme.
Paulo Bernardo’s lawyer, who was nominated by Lula to occupy a place in the STM (Superior Military Court), but has not yet been sabbathed by the Senate. According to her, “the petition only asks for the new decision of the Supreme.”
The Public Prosecution Service agreed with the change of forum, taking into account that “the crimes object of the present action were committed in the exercise of the civil service, in relation to which the Federal Constitution gives the prerogative of forum to the defendant Paulo Bernardo Silva and considering the change of understanding [do STF]”.
Another case involves André Vargas, a former PT deputy who was the first condemned politician in Lava Jato, in a decision signed by the then judge (today senator by União Brasil-PR).
Vargas was in prison from 2015 to 2018 and was the target of two criminal complaints, but the sentences were later annulled by the Supreme Court, which declared the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba incompetent to judge the cases. The lawsuits migrated to the Federal Court in the Federal District.
In a process that was being processed in the Federal District and was awaiting analysis of the complaint, Vargas was accused of having received bribes to enable contracts at the Ministry of Health and Caixa Econômica. He denied that he had committed the crimes.
The process and all related actions were sent to the Supreme at the beginning of the month.
Already the case of former minister Milton Ribeiro who is due to return to the Supreme deals with an action in which he.
When he was minister, Ribeiro said that homosexuality would not be normal and attributed its occurrence to “maladjusted families”. The statements were made in an interview in 2020 to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
He was denounced in 2022 by the Attorney General’s Office. The case left the Supreme Court when Ribeiro left the position of Minister. On March 20 of this year, the TRF-1 (Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region), in Brasilia, received the complaint and transformed the former minister into defendant.
On April 28, prosecutor Luiz Fernando Viana asked the case to return to the Supreme, due to the new understanding of forum.
“Although the applicant no longer holds office with a forum for a prerogative of function, the fact that the conduct in a criminal thesis imputed to him was practiced in the year and due to the position of Minister of State occupied by him at the time of the facts attracts the competence of the Supreme Court,” he said.
Sought, Ribeiro’s lawyer, Daniel Bialski, said that if the case is sent to the Supreme Court, the receipt of the complaint should be annulled, as the decision was made after the Court’s change of understanding on the forum.
There is also one of the STF, which was sent to the first instance and has not yet returned to the Supreme.
The determination occurred after the Sheet Revealing a recording in which the former minister claimed that the Bolsonaro government prioritized municipalities whose requests for release of money were negotiated by pastors who had no position and worked in an informal MEC funds.
In March, after the change of understanding of the special forum, the minister had determined the return to the court of investigations into politicians such as the PSD president, former minister (MDB) and former Environmental Minister and federal deputy Ricardo Salles (Novo-SP).
All these findings had been sent to lower instances because politicians left the positions and lost the special forum.
STF’s understanding of Special Forum
- Until 1999: Authorities with forum in the Supreme Court continue to be tried by the Court even after the end of the term, if crime was committed while occupying the position
- 1999: Authorities automatically lose special forum when leaving office, and cases must go to the first instance.
- 2018: STF restricts forum, which is valid only when a crime is related to the position, and only over the duration of the mandate
- 2025: Forum is extended again with new interpretation, and actions against authorities in the Supreme Court must follow in court even after the termination of the mandates
