It is urgent to point out judicial integrity wherever it appears. Integrity practiced, not recited. Unpretentious and anti-heroic integrity that reveals an intelligent and sincere understanding of the role of a good judge in the democratic rule of law.
The 50th anniversary of Vladimir Herzog’s death, in 2025, had two remarkable moments. First, in , the minister president of , , apologized for deaths and torture during the military regime.
Second, at the USP Faculty of Law, a few months after entering the judiciary, the Brazilian State handed down a sentence condemning Herzog’s murder.
In the climate of terror of AI-5, a young judge, more than speaking truth to power, spoke the constitutional right to .
“I avoided talking about this sentence for almost 40 years. I’m not a fan of the media judge. The judge doesn’t just talk about the case, he preferably talks about it. The reasons for the decisions speak for themselves. I didn’t speak out for fear that I could suffer an attack.”
“I think I had the foresight, and sorry to speak in the first person singular, that sentence had to speak itself. It was the voice of the Judiciary. It was the judge representing the Judiciary. Putting that sentence in the voice of the Judiciary was fundamental. The sentence would have to be a cry for the independence of the Judiciary.”
He remembered what it was like to be a judge during the dictatorship. “The federal court of first instance was created to be the dictatorship’s justice system. I noticed the climate within the forum. SNI agents handed down sentences. The climate was one of abuse of authority.”
He stated that the sentence was not his alone, but written in co-authorship with a new school of public law on State responsibility and individual freedom. “I wanted to be a surgeon, I wasn’t going to throw stones at the regime, I was going to throw bricks.”
The sentence became a milestone not only in resistance to the dictatorship, but also a starting point for a new notion of administrative risk and duties in the protection of elementary rights. But it was only partially fulfilled.
To this day, Herzog’s torturers and executioners have not even been investigated.
if it was understood that continued crimes and crimes against humanity were not covered by the Amnesty Law. If it didn’t appeal to the most cynical symbol of “pacification”, the most cowardly idea of preventing “revanchism”.
Moraes also highlighted the role of women in Justice based on the image of Penelope, wife of Ulysses in Greek mythology, a symbol of resistance and insight: “What is the voice that echoes the tragedy? The voice of Penelope, the voice of the feminine, that echoes its own tragedy. How can it be? A supreme court like that, is one-legged and one-eyed.”
One can see, in Moraes’ sentence, at least, that alone, it would not accomplish: institutional awareness, when perceiving the weakness of the Judiciary that speaks in the first person singular; the intellectual vigor of those who propose to innovate in legal thinking with research and argumentative sweat, not with figures of speech; political courage, for not giving in to the risk that his decision causes him.
The year 2026 makes a new demand for decency in the higher courts. Elementary decency. Moraes teaches what this means.
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