The scandal was silent. Then multiplication. Finally, resignation. Deaf to popular indignation, institutions hide in the closet.
Recent reports brought news about what opened with a former Bolsonaro minister in 2024. Weslley Galzo, from Estadão, published: “Instituto de Mendonça earns in public contracts in just over a year”; “Mendonça is of interest to Fiesp and maintains an agreement with the federation through an institute”.
Eduardo Militão, from UOL, reported: “Mendonça suspends trial of governor of his institute.” We also learned that, threatened with losing “philanthropic” status due to suspected illegal remuneration of directors, the Fundação Faculdade de Medicina included Mendonça on its board.
What do Fiesp, governor of Roraima and private foundation have in common? Deep sympathy for André Mendonça.
There are laws that apply to you, judge of lower courts, not to ministers of the . STF ministers can ignore it, you can’t. You can speak through your pores and articulate through the corridors of Lisbon and Buenos Aires, you can’t. They can shrug off control, you can’t. They can travel with sponsorship, you can’t.
They can use their position to benefit relatives. For you, judges, it is usually more difficult, less profitable. They can be businesspeople and use their public image in business. You have no political capital or public image. Nor should they have.
STF ministers can. It’s hard to imagine what they can’t. And who can say, with authority, that they can’t. It’s difficult to know who they respect. In defense of the institution of the STF, the behavior of STF ministers needs to be questioned. We have nowhere to go.
The pioneer of large-scale magistocratic entrepreneurship was . The was his last innovation. André Mendonça decided to make a pilgrimage along this business avenue and become a minister-businessman.
The Constitution says: “judges are prohibited from holding any other position or function, except teaching.” But magistocrats resort to a naughty explanation: the Organic Law of the Judiciary (Loman), of 1979, allows the judge to be a “shareholder”.
Even assuming that the Loman rule is constitutional, that the Constitution did not say what it said, it would still be illegal. In practice, ministers mentioned are not just shareholders. Someone who leads the company’s public initiatives and serves as a poster child for selling services, makes decisions and speaks on its behalf, is not just a shareholder. If the practice does not correspond to what is written in the social contract, the practice prevails in the law.
From gross illegality an alternative legality was made. There is a whole portfolio of alternative legalities open to magistocratic investment. A profitable portfolio beyond the reach of Faria Lima. Becoming an entrepreneur is one. But don’t go out there and tell the extremist beast. He invokes any pretext to justify the plan to close this court that overestimates its reputation.
In the magistocratic metaverse, none of this corrupts the integrity of the act of judging. Law that affects a judge of first instance does not affect a minister. Law that affects poor public defender clients does not affect rich legal clients.
But a dick that doesn’t hit Mendes doesn’t hit Mendonça. For equality of prerogatives and equality of privileges.
LINK PRESENT: Did you like this text? Subscribers can access seven free accesses from any link per day. Just click the blue F below.
