During the hearing at the Federal Senate, Jorge Messias, nominated for a vacancy at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), responded to questions from senator Sérgio Moro (PL-PR) about his doctoral thesis, in which he addresses the impeachment process of former president Dilma Rousseff.
Messias made a point of clarifying that, by describing the episode as a “2016 coup”, he did not intend, at any time, to disqualify the institutional process led by Parliament. The Union’s attorney general thanked him for reading the academic work and highlighted the context in which it was produced.
“It is academic work carried out within an academic perspective, within academic freedom, in which we have, based on scientific and methodological rigor, to support a thesis before a panel”, he stated. Messias argued that the use of the qualification does not represent a judgment on the legality of the parliamentary process.
“When I discuss the discussion regarding President Dilma’s impeachment process and classify it as a 2016 coup, I clearly put it in the perspective of a political vision, of a part of Brazilian society that understood it that way,” he declared.
Messias reinforced that “at no time” did he disqualify the institutional process carried out by Parliament. To support his position, he recalled that he personally attended all impeachment sessions and was present on the day she went to the Senate to make her public defense.
He also highlighted that the process was chaired by former STF minister Ricardo Lewandowski. “I put the expression [golpe] as it is, a political criticism of the process”, he concluded.
