The minister, president of the (Superior Electoral Court), stated this Monday (2) that democracy imposes ethics, transparency and efficiency. Earlier in the afternoon, the president of the (Supreme Federal Court) announced his colleague as rapporteur of the proposal for a code of conduct for the court’s ministers.
“There is no democracy without an independent and impartial Judiciary, but democracy also imposes ethics, transparency and efficiency in the action of power, always strictly in accordance with current legislation”, she said during a speech at the opening of the judicial year at the electoral court.
Cármen defended the transparency of the conduct of authorities and the commitment to independent judgments of the interests of parties. He also said that distrust in state bodies and agents is a factor of instability and that ethical deviations must be dealt with rigorously.
“Distrust in bodies and agents of state power is a source of unrest for citizens and a factor of legal, social, political and economic instability. We must be rigorous and intransigent with any type of ethical deviation,” he said.
“It is essential that the behavior of each magistrate is legitimate, trustworthy and transparent. Mystery is incompatible with the Republic,” he said.
She also said that what legitimizes the actions of the Judiciary “is the trust that citizens place or expect from the judiciary”.
In a speech at the opening of the judicial year and, in the middle of , Fachin announced the minister for the rapporteur of the Supreme Court’s code of conduct. The measure, which he defends and has been in recent months, faces resistance from some magistrates.
The president of the TSE did not mention Fachin’s proposal, but, more broadly, made several references to the topic.
“The protection of people’s constitutional rights to privacy and intimacy does not remove or diminish the requirement to equally ensure the transparency of the actions of magistrates and public servants”, said the minister.
“There should be no tolerance for any practice of the judiciary that is not appropriate to the principles of decency, honesty and functional decorum because that is what the honorability of the Judiciary entails,” he stated.
In his speech at the Supreme Court, Fachin stated that magistrates must answer for their own actions, preached clarity of limits and respect for republican criticism, defended self-correction and spoke about the challenge of the integrity of institutions and the court’s commitment to a code of ethics.
“The question is whether the time has come for the court to signal, through its own actions, that the moment is different. My conviction is that this moment has arrived. The phase now is for the full resumption of long-term institutional construction,” said Fachin.
The choice of rapporteur was by decision of the president of the court. He previously spoke with his colleagues about the nomination and signaled to them that the debate on the topic should be postponed until after the elections, as suggested by a group of ministers.
The ceremony took place after a recess troubled by an image crisis of the STF. During the period, Fachin tried to get around the issue and even talked to colleagues at the court.
