During the trial at the STJ, the rapporteur of the action, Minister Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, argued that the professionals used expressions interest to offend the magistrate’s honor
The dean of the Federal Supreme Court (), minister, signed a court agreement with journalists Octavio Floro Barata Costa, current president of the Brazilian Press Association (ABI), and Viapiana Tábata to end the process filed against them for “moral damages” in a report published in Istoé magazine, in 2017. The agreement requires the magazine and journalists to present a written retraction and donate to $ 10,000 to the institute. Migrations and Human Rights – IMDH. In June this year, the Third Class Superior Court Justice (STJ) had convicted the reporters and the vehicle to compensate the minister at $ 150,000.
The agreement was proposed by journalists to replace the penalty. The amount set in the agreement will be divided between the two subscribers of the report. The decision of the STJ collegiate unanimously reversed the defeats that Gilmar had suffered in the lower two instances. In the report entitled “Suspected Business”, Istoé reported the nationalization of a education entity in Mato Grosso owned by the STF Minister’s family. The educational institution was in the name of Gilmar Mendes’s sister. “In Brasilia, even the emas that circulate through the gardens of the palaces know that it is usual in the public service to transfer properties to relatives only to fit the legal impositions. A mere formality,” says the magazine text.
During the STJ trial, the rapporteur of the action, Minister Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, argued that the professionals used expressions interest to offend the honor of the magistrate. “The text of the publication questioned is permeated by ironies and insinuations that are clearly turned against the person of the author of the demand, being clear to associate him, in a pejorative way, the image of someone who distances himself from ethics and aimed only to safeguard personal benefits and promote the favoring of people nearby,” wrote the rapporteur of the STJ.
Before the case arrived at the STJ, an appeal by Gilmar Mendes was tried in the second instance by the Federal District Court (TJDFT). For the judges, the report was published “within the limits of the right to free expression of communication activities”.
*With information from Estadão Content
Posted by Fernando Dias
