The president of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Minister Edson Fachin, interrupted the recess and anticipated his return to Brasília, where he disembarked on the night of Monday, 19th. To interlocutors and peers of the Court, the minister justified his return before the official opening of the Judiciary year with the assessment that “the moment demands” his presence in the capital.
Fachin’s central objective is to manage the deterioration in the court’s image caused by the recent developments in the Banco Master inquiry, reported by Minister Dias Toffoli. Fachin, who had transferred the interim presidency to his vice president, Alexandre de Moraes, seeks to articulate an institutional way out of the impasse that has placed the Supreme Court on a collision course with the Federal Police (PF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
This Tuesday, the 20th, the president of the STF has an agenda in São Luís, Maranhão, for a meeting with minister Flávio Dino. Fachin decided to go to the capital of Maranhão to meet in person with the minister because Dino’s son is going to undergo surgery.
The Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, received four representations from parliamentarians in recent months asking him to propose to the STF the suspicion of Toffoli as rapporteur of the investigation investigating fraud and crimes committed by the Master’s owners. Over the last 26 years, however, there has been no Supreme Court decision in favor of a minister’s request for removal.
‘Atypical’ decisions and secrecy
The focus of the presidency’s concerns is Dias Toffoli’s maintenance and method of handling the case. The rapporteur’s decisions generated strong discomfort in the legal community. Toffoli referred all investigations into Banco Master to the STF – including processes that were being processed in the first instance without the involvement of authorities with privileged jurisdiction – and imposed high secrecy, preventing the viewing of procedural acts in public consultation systems.
Institutional tension escalated when the minister ordered that all material seized by the Federal Police in new phases of the operation be sent directly to his office. The order was revised only after the PF warned of the risk of prejudice to the analysis of the evidence and the PGR issued a contrary opinion. After the withdrawal, it was decided that the material would remain under the custody of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Delegates’ reaction
The uneasiness became public last Saturday, the 17th, when the National Association of Federal Police Delegates (ADPF) released a statement classifying the scenario as “atypical”. The entity pointed out an “affront to the prerogatives” of the corporation, citing direct interference in investigative planning, such as the imposition of tight deadlines for searches, the carrying out of non-standard confrontations and the nominal choice of experts by the magistrate.
