The minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), is considering bringing to the court’s plenary the debate on the breach of confidentiality of Maridt Participações, a company owned by the minister’s family, by the (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) on Organized Crime.
The breach of confidentiality took place on Friday (27). The decision was made within the scope of a procedure that had been archived for three years in the Supreme Court and concerned the , opened to investigate the Jair Bolsonaro government.
On the night of Tuesday (3), he filed an appeal against the suspension on the grounds that the decision violates the prerogative of parliamentary commissions of inquiry to use the investigative powers of the judicial authorities. This request must be submitted by Gilmar to the group of magistrates.
Behind the scenes of the STF, a wing of ministers views the dean’s decision with criticism and understands that there was — it is as if the company, when petitioning within the scope of this specific process, had “circumvented” the lottery system and chose the magistrate who would analyze its application.
Gilmar could take the discussion to the Second Panel, a smaller panel of which he is a member along with ministers André Mendonça, Kássio Nunes Marques, Luiz Fux and Toffoli himself — who, by law, would be prevented from voting, as he acknowledges being a partner at Maridt.
However, the dean has signaled that the case deserves to be examined by the full quorum of ministers, so that it is possible to establish guidelines for the activities of CPIs in general, preventing commissions from going beyond their scope and committing abuses. He understands, according to reports from interlocutors, that the majority of the plenary tends to agree with the need to impose these limits.
The assessment is that, if in the pre-smartphone era the breach of telephone confidentiality only covered calls made and received, today the same measure can lead a CPI to access an endless amount of private data, such as photos, videos, geolocation and financial information.
In this way, some parameters could be established by the plenary of the Supreme Court, such as delimiting a period of time for breaches of confidentiality (prohibiting, for example, CPIs from accessing data from five or ten years ago) and providing parliamentary committees with the obligation of the so-called “duty of custody” of documents, to avoid leaks of sensitive data.
Technically, the minister would also have the support of the STF’s internal regulations, which provide for the plenary’s jurisdiction to judge habeas corpus granted against acts of the .
In the case of Maridt, it was necessary to investigate the Arleen investment fund, which is part of the web used by banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of , to perpetrate financial fraud.
Gilmar, however, stated that the breach of confidentiality occurred “in clear and unavoidable non-compliance with the limits” of the CPI’s object. He defined the measure as “invasive” and “devoid of suitability due to the complete and absolute absence of valid grounds.”
According to the minister, the reasons alleged by the commission are “flawed, imprecise and mistaken”. “Only a legal interpretation stagnant over time could lead to the conclusion that all this data can be investigated without the approval of the Judiciary”, wrote the judge in last week’s decision.
According to Gilmar, under the pretext of combating organized crime, the breach of confidentiality was decreed “without the indication of a single concrete element that links the now applicant [Maridt] to the facts narrated in the request for the creation of the commission.
In relation to criticism about having decided in favor of Toffoli in an action that concerned Covid’s CPI, the dean told assistants that the two cases have similar themes: approval of requests disconnected from the facts under investigation.
He also said he did not see manipulation by the natural judge, since it was he who decided, in 2021, that “only a legal interpretation stagnant over time could reach the conclusion that commissions can have access to the content of private conversations.”
On that occasion, Gilmar restricted the scope of breaches of confidentiality by the production company Brasil Paralelo. The measures had been approved without a time limit by Covid’s CPI, which was investigating the impact of misinformation on deaths caused by Covid-19.
Now, in relation to Maridt, the minister once again said that the court “should look into the issue, to establish solid and homogeneous guidelines for the control of acts carried out” by CPIs, to avoid what he classifies as “excessive power”.
