The First Panel of the Federal Supreme Court formed a majority for the end of compulsory paid retirement as the maximum penalty applied to magistrates in Brazil. As a result, the measure is no longer valid as a punishment for all judges in the country, except for the STF ministers themselves.
The understanding consolidates the individual decision of Minister Flávio Dino, who in March considered that compulsory retirement no longer existed as a disciplinary sanction after the Social Security reform approved in 2019.
In the specific case, Dino annulled a judgment by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) that had imposed four different sentences on a magistrate, two of which were compulsory retirement. The minister understood that the CNJ’s judgment was flawed and reaffirmed that there is no longer a legal basis for using compulsory retirement as a punitive measure.
For the minister, serious infractions committed by judges should be punished with the loss of their position, and not with paid leave. Ministers Alexandre de Moraes and Cármen Lúcia followed his vote.
The only one to disagree was minister Cristiano Zanin. He disagreed with the thesis that all cases of compulsory retirement should be processed in the Supreme Court, as the others argued. For Zanin, this point was not the subject of the initial request, and the decision should be restricted to declaring the nullity — or not — of the specific case.
O , which defended that the issue be taken to the STF plenary, and not just to the First Panel. When contesting Dino’s decision, Deputy Attorney General of the Republic Elizete Ramos recognized the minister’s “laudable intentions”, but argued that removing the mandatory retirement penalty would be up to Congress, and not the Judiciary, as it was a political choice about whether or not to maintain this type of sanction.
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