A wing of ministers of the (Superior Military Court) must review the evidence from the 2022 coup plot process to maintain patents of the defendants in the central core of the case. This path must be adopted to try to preserve the uniforms of generals Augusto Heleno and .
The military court will evaluate five cases, which also include Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who is a retired captain, and Almir Garnier. The tendency is for these to lose their status as officers.
Behind the scenes, the rapporteurs of the cases have already told colleagues in the court that they must analyze the condemnatory records, which bring together the evidence of the case, to form their positions. The assessment is that the warning reinforces the perspective that some of the magistrates should keep some of their uniforms.
Still as a result of this option, the judgments must wait until after the elections, as the material is extensive.
The files sent by the Federal Police to lawyers on May 17 last year total around 77 terabytes (each terabyte corresponds to 1,024 gigabytes). The trial ruling is 1,991 pages long.
A Sheet heard three ministers, advisors to other magistrates and lawyers for the cases under reservation. They assess that the discussion about the criteria for judging representations of this type should be raised both by defenses and by ministers, in their votes.
In analyzes of this type, it is not up to the Military Justice to reanalyze the conviction, only to define whether those acts and crimes prevent the maintenance of officer status. There is, however, a division in the court regarding the criteria for conducting these trials.
A group of ministers understands that the evaluation of convictions, in itself, is sufficient to form a judgment. On the other hand, there are those who understand that, to reach this conclusion, it is necessary to review the condemnatory acts.
Finally, the STM still has ministers considered novices, who have not yet judged cases of this type since they took office. There are, in the current composition, four nominees in the current term of President Lula (PT).
The STM is made up of 15 ministers: 5 civilians and 10 military (four from the Army, three from the Navy and three from the Air Force). Among them are military personnel involved in the coup plot.
The trial will be unprecedented: the STM will judge the dignity of generals at the top of the Armed Forces career for the first time.
There will be no so-called instruction of processes, that is, the phase of producing evidence to support a verdict, with testimonies, experts, due diligence, gathering of documents and evidence. Judgments will be based on the conviction already given by the (Supreme Federal Court).
A minister said, with reservation, that judgments on unworthiness are based on the consciences of the magistrates themselves, not on a clear rule on the subject. The statement is in line with an advisor’s assessment, according to which the analyzes will have an important political factor.
The case of Heleno, former chief minister of Bolsonaro’s Institutional Security Office, is considered the most delicate. Ministers assess that the word “indignity” has a very strong weight for a general with a high degree of internal admiration, awarded and considered a reference. According to a magistrate, declaring him unworthy would be declaring the unworthiness of the Army itself.
The assessment is that the long period of services provided to them can count in favor of Heleno and Paulo Sérgio, considering the lack of previous records of misconduct and their participation in the coup attempt considered less than that of the former president and the general.
Bolsonaro was considered for years, and the image was only fully reestablished in the period leading up to the 2018 campaign.
Garnier, in turn, is well liked in the Navy, but the Force has fewer votes in the court. The testimony of the Army and Air Force commanders in the coup plot process also weighs against the admiral. The fact that he carried out attacks on military personnel weighs against Braga Netto.
Public evidence of the ministers’ positions should only be known during the trial. In the STF, there were more stages through which the judges anticipated some understandings, even if they had not yet voted on the merits.
It is up to the STM presidency to schedule sessions for analyzing the case. The president of the court, , has already stated that, as soon as she receives the votes of those responsible for the cases, she must set the cases for trial.
There is also an expectation that there will be no request for a review of the processes. But the trials may have different progress, both due to the fact that the cases are distributed to different rapporteurs and due to the recent disagreement between ministers involving discussion about the participation of military personnel in a coup d’état.
The court will assess whether those conducts have the potential to cause a negative effect on the troops, as bad examples in the chain of hierarchy and discipline and whether those convictions and stances tarnish the morale of the Armed Forces as a whole.
After completion and exhaustion of resources, the STM communicates the decision to the commander of the respective Force. From then on, soldiers go through an administrative process and can be expelled from the Forces, leaving a pension for their family members.
Officials who are sentenced to a custodial sentence of more than two years for a military or common crime are subject to this type of action. Because of this focus, the case of whistleblower Mauro Cid, a lieutenant colonel who received a two-year sentence at the STF, will not be analyzed.
