When the case of the (Supreme Court), the news indicated that it was an unprecedented judgment of the country’s political and economic caste. Some analysts indicated that it was the political system itself – the vices and virtues of coalition presidentialism – which would be under scrutiny. But few analysts even advanced the thesis that the STF itself would also be in the defendants’ bench, as in fact occurred.
Only the merit trial, which began in August 2012, occupied the court for four months. There were several magazine covers, radio interviews, newspaper analysis and to account for the entire political and legal plot of the trial, in which ministers emerged as stars, for good and evil.
The Supreme has lost the ceremony with itself. There were many television disagreements that broke with the liturgy: heated discussions, reciprocal accusations and favoring or accusation for political purposes.
We had betrayals and intrigue: candidates for ministers who promised to “kill the process in the chest” by sending defense theses but who took a staunch protagonism by endorsing theses of the prosecution.
We had ministers who extended and closed a session to prevent a colleague from voting so that the public debate could press him to change his mind over the weekend.
All this judicial dramaturgy, narrated and analyzed to the details, brought the population closer to the Supreme in a passionate way, in compliment and criticism.
A movement that was accentuated only with the rise and fall of the impeachment of President Dilma, the allegations of corruption in The Embrace with the pandemic, the disbelief of the electoral process, investigation of the attempted coup d’état, reaching the punishment of scammers involved on January 8, 2023.
This wide exposure and visibility generated a political cost to the Supreme, whose reputation became the sum of their ministers’ individual reputation.
The ministers, in turn, were increasingly seen as political agents by the population. Their votes and decisions began to be viewed as politically oriented acts and, therefore, evaluated more for the result of their actions than for the legal reasons behind them.
Thus, every time the court does not meet certain political expectations, it is accused of partial, activist etc. Given the relevance and controversial nature of the cases it has judged, there will always be a relevant portion of society making this accusation.
This accusation becomes more frequent and blunt when the Supreme imposes controls or holds certain agents or political groups. When these accusations persist in time and disseminate themselves by different social groups, punctual criticism becomes distrust and rejection of the legitimacy of the constitutional court.
This broth of distrust and rejection enables criticism and attack on the Supreme to become a powerful electoral agenda. This perfectly meets the interests of a political class willing to raffle the public interest in favor of the benefit of certain interest groups.
This speaks of reforming the Supreme without the goal of perfecting the institution and dealing with the long -time problems that affect the court. Bills, CPI proposals, impeachment requests are mobilized to attack the Supreme Court for what it does right.
These are threats so that unconstitutional norms are not overthrown, rights are not recognized, abusive practices are not contained and crimes made by political agents are not punished.
Returning, it is evident that the case itself cannot be guilty of the ills that currently affect the STF. The trial generated an unprecedented exposure of the Court, which gave him, at first, wide popularity and prestige. Over time, the vices in the court’s performance also became widely known.
Given this, ministers could have acted with internal reforms to mitigate their persistent problems, such as excessive individual decisions, instability in jurisprudence, impediment and suspicion of ministers.
However little has been done in this regard, leaving the STF vulnerable to a political class that increasingly appropriates the public budget and has the greatest interest in dismantling the main institution capable of controlling it.
In the end, the same exercise of criminal powers that it earned the Supreme Court both prestigious years ago today places it in the spotlight.
There is no return to the exhibition that the monthly has provided the Supreme Court, but there is still time for the court to correct its problems to try to avoid legitimacy legitimacy.
