The Second Panel of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) confirmed last Friday the decision of Minister Dias Toffoli that annulled all evidence of Operation Lava-Jato against former Minister Paulo Bernardo. In the trial, held in the court’s virtual plenary, ministers Gilmar Mendes and Kassio Nunes Marques followed the rapporteur’s vote, while Edson Fachin and André Mendonça diverged from Toffoli.
Paulo Bernardo was Minister of Planning during the first two terms of the Lula administration between 2005 and 2010, and Minister of Communications in the first term of former President Dilma Rousseff, between 2011 and 2014. He was one of the targets of Operation Lava-Jet due to investigation into the management of payroll loans for federal servants. Dias Toffoli annulled all acts of the operation against Paulo Bernardo in early June, extending to Paulo Bernardo the effects of decision that had nullified evidence against a lawyer who was a defendant in the same case.
Paulo Bernardo responded to a criminal action at the 6th Federal Criminal Court of São Paulo. The process was presented due to the outbreak of pixuleco operations 1 and pixuleco 2, phases of Lava-Jato. Dias Toffoli argued, as well as other similar decisions in which he has already annulled the acts of Lava-Jato, that the operation occurred with a prior accusation between prosecution and judge, marked by the breakdown of impartiality and equidistance of the judge-in this case, then Judge Sergio Moro.
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“The prior hit between prosecution and judge, with a real scene game in the decree of searches and seizures and temporary arrests 30 minutes after protocol, is objective, fully communicable and extendable petitioner circumstance (Paulo Bernardo),” the former minister’s defense in a section quoted by Dias Toffoli in his decision.
Voting overdue, Minister Edson Fachin diverged from Toffoli. According to him, the decision to annul Lava-Jato acts automatically due to the dialogues leaked between Sérgio Moro and the Operation Prosecutors eventually invalidate legitimate and autonomous evidence.
“Thus, the need to evaluate, with the proper precaution, and, on a case-by-case basis, in the competent court, the concrete and specific scope of the criminal procedures affected by any nullity raised by the defense, taking into account the existence of autonomous elements, such as those arising from awarded collaboration agreement,” Fachin said.
