O STF (Supreme Federal Court) It has lost, over the years, the internal self-restraint mechanisms that historically functioned as a brake on the individual behavior of its ministers. The assessment is from the STF journalist and researcher, Felipe Recondomade during participation in the program ‘WW Special’, from CNN.
According to Recondo, in the past, the internal dynamics of the court imposed clear limits on the actions of ministers, both in the content of decisions and in public behavior. “There was a limit within the institution that reverberated in all of us, including a limit in behavior”, he reported, when recalling a conversation with the minister former president of the Supreme Court, who died in 2023, aged 85.
Recondo highlighted that, in that period, deviations from the institutional standard were quickly corrected by peers themselves. As an example, he cited a monocratic decision by the retired minister Marco Aurélio Melloeven before the constitutional review, which suspended the review process. “The then president of the Supreme Court called him and said: ‘This is outside the norm, you can’t do that’. The decision was taken to the plenary and overturned,” he stated.
For the journalist, who specializes in covering the STF and author of three books about the Court, this type of internal reaction worked as an effective containment mechanism. “The institution itself defined its limits and that worked. We don’t remember the Supreme Court of the 1990s with the problems we are seeing today,” he said.
In Recondo’s assessment, this internal limit no longer operates due to a combination of factors, including the profile of the most recently appointed ministers, personality issues and individual actions without institutional counterpoint. “Without an imposition of limits by the Supreme Court itself, this leads us to the reality we have today”, he highlighted.
The researcher also questioned the effectiveness of proposals that defend . For him, existing legislation would be sufficient. “The very Organic Law of the Judiciary is enough to establish a standard that would serve Supreme Court justices. I wonder what a code of conduct could say beyond what Loman already says”, he asked.
Recondo also reported having heard, behind the scenes of the court, statements that evidenced the deterioration of the institutional rule. “I even heard from ministers the following: ‘If this minister does this, and I consider it wrong, but it gives him political benefits, then I will do it too’”, he declared.
According to him, this logic created a cycle that was difficult to break. “This became the rule within the Supreme Court. And then we entered a cycle that cannot be broken”, he concluded.
WW Especial
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