The minister had a snap. While Brazilian society, apprehensive about the degradation of , demands a change in conduct and proposes a code of ethics as the beginning of a long journey, a “new cycle of constitutional changes”.
From the most intelligent ministers in the court’s recent history, it was not a sober gesture. His adjectives sent an unsympathetic message to the public demand for judicial ethics.
it must be “true”, solve “concrete problems”; have “technical consistency”, inspired by the “public interest”; that “effectively improves” the justice system with “serious and profound” measures. He rejected “superficial changes”, “easy slogans”, or the “retaliatory character”. He called for reform through “dialogue”, “as only the AI-5 managed to impose, from the outside in, changes in the Judiciary”.
To know what he thinks of the fight for a code of ethics, a hidden object of the text, simply reverse the signs. A parallel with the imposition of AI-5 was even allowed.
presented new numbers on old problems, such as the 75 million pending cases, 5 million initiated in 2026. And ended with a list of 15 ideas: rethinking competencies and requirements for access to higher courts, court orders, specialized bodies, criminal types, virtual sessions, artificial intelligence, etc.
It was not, strictly speaking, a reform proposal. The rain of pocket ideas did not have the “technical consistency” and “depth” that it requested from society. But the list was good, as good as it was uncontroversial in this degree of generality. Reforms that Brazil has been trying to implement since the 1988 Constitution, with limited success.
Instead of a realistic and pragmatic measure, to at least begin to face a specific problem, an act that the STF itself could approve without further work, Dino chose to enumerate problems that torment him and all of us, whose change depends above all on Congress.
It was not the minister’s intention, but it seemed like a work of diversionary illusionism by those who prefer everything to remain as it is. To drown out the ethical checklist, he created a constitutional wishlist; in the place of micro-regulation at your fingertips, at the incremental pace possible, an alphabet of macro-intentions; instead of the bitter medicine of self-criticism, a drug of legislative utopia. While a code of ethics tries to alleviate a leak in the room, the wishlist wants an end to the rain.
A code of ethics is a starting point, not an arrival point. It doesn’t solve everything, but it contributes to something urgent. It establishes a map, it does not guarantee the destination.
For a stronger and less suspicious STF; more trustworthy and less promiscuous; more worthy of respect and less subject to derision; more capable of being obeyed, less open to negotiation tables.
For a STF with more authority to counter the interests of big tech, gangsterism, the forces of rupture and the uproaring Bolsonarinhos. With authority to defend the freedoms of the vulnerable, with a sense of urgency and attention to suffering.
A court that is less childish and angry in public dialogue, more mature for self-criticism. A court that understands that a sycophant is not a friend, just a parasite who pays for trips and cigars in exchange for influence and fees.
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