The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) filed this Monday (23) a formal request to the president of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Minister Edson Fachin, to close the so-called fake news inquiry, opened at the Court in 2019.
The document is signed by the National Board of OAB and the presidents of the state sections. In the text, the entity states that there is “extreme institutional concern with the permanence and legal conformation of long-term investigations”, directly citing the investigation that has been underway for almost seven years in the Supreme Court.
The demonstration occurs amid the repercussions of a search and seizure operation ordered by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the case. The measure targeted four Federal Revenue employees suspected of accessing and leaking confidential data from relatives of STF ministers.
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For OAB, the research emerged in a specific context. “It is undeniable that the establishment of the aforementioned investigation took place in an environment of serious institutional tension, marked by repeated attacks on the honor and safety of Ministers of the Supreme Court”, states the entity, remembering that the STF played a central role in defending the constitutional order at that time.
According to the Order, however, the scenario that justified the opening of the investigation has been overcome. “Once the most acute situation has been overcome”, says the document, it is necessary to strictly observe the constitutional parameters that govern the State’s actions. The entity maintains that, as it was conceived as an exceptional response to exceptional circumstances, the investigation must respect clear limits and not extend indefinitely.
The fake news inquiry was initiated in March 2019 by the then president of the STF, Dias Toffoli, based on provisions of the Court’s Internal Regulations that deal with crimes against the court. Moraes was appointed rapporteur. The initial objective was to investigate “fraudulent news”, threats and insults directed at the Supreme Court, its ministers and their families.
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Over the years, new facts were included in the same procedure. The OAB classified this movement as “excessive elasticity of the investigative object”. For the entity, the investigation, in the Brazilian constitutional model, must be limited to determined facts and not function as a mechanism that absorbs different conducts as connections emerge.
“The constitutional and procedural logic of the investigation […] is an instrument aimed at investigating specific facts […]and not that of a procedure open to the successive absorption of different conducts”, states the text. The OAB adds that the concern increases in the face of “recent reports about the inclusion, within the scope of the same procedure, of people and facts” that would not be immediately in line with the original core of the investigation.
The entity also relates the debate to constitutional guarantees. According to the document, the defense of democracy involves not only the repression of institutional attacks, but also respect for due legal process, broad defense, contradictory proceedings and freedom of expression. There is specific mention of the protection of professional practice, with emphasis on journalists and lawyers.
In the end, the OAB requests a hearing with Edson Fachin to present his arguments and asks that measures be taken to conclude “inquiries of a perpetual nature”. The entity also requires that new procedures not be introduced with a format considered expansive and without clear delimitation of the object.
