After an eight-hour hearing, it was approved by the CCJ (Commission for Constitution, Justice and Citizenship) with 16 votes in favor and 11 against, with the plenary now making the final decision.
With this result, its vote records the highest number of votes against in the CCJ since the redemocratization of Brazil, in addition to the tightest score for approval. The worst result previously had been in the hearing of , which had 17 votes in favor to 10 against.
In the Senate plenary, Messias now needs the approval of 41 out of 81 senators in the secret vote.
The hearings at the CCJ to evaluate and approve names nominated by the President of the Republic to the (Supreme Federal Court) only began to be held publicly after the country’s redemocratization.
In 1989, Paulo Brossard was the prime minister questioned and unanimously approved. Before that date, the presidential nomination was sent to the Senate, and the CCJ issued a purely documentary opinion, without public inquiry into the nominees.
The recent history of the Senate shows an increase in the intensity of these hearings. In addition to Messias, Dino and (18 to 9), other ministers who faced high rejection in the CCJ were (19 to 7) and (20 to 7), followed by (16 to 6), (21 to 5) and (22 to 5).
However, since the first hearing, there has never been a formal rejection in the CCJ, all of which were approved by the commission.
Until 2012, votes tended to be mostly consensual. During this period, only 6 of the 22 ministers had registered votes against in the collegiate: Francisco Rezek (15 to 3), nominated by Fernando Collor; Maurício Corrêa (13 to 2), nominated by Itamar Franco, Gilmar Mendes (16 to 6), nominated by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Ricardo Lewandowski (21 to 1) and (20 to 3), nominated by , and Rosa Weber (19 to 3), nominated by Dilma Rousseff.
Jorge Messias is the 11th nominated by President Lula. All ministers chosen by the president in his first term were approved by the CCJ without any vote against, namely Cezar Peluso (19 to 0), Ayres Britto (20 to 0), Joaquim Barbosa (21 to 0) and Eros Grau (20 to 0). The scenario changed in the third term, with the fiercest hearings of Zanin, Dino and, now, Messias.
Without the exact numerical record published in the Senate minutes at the time, ministers Paulo Brossard, Sepúlveda Pertence and Celso de Mello, appointed by , had their opinions unanimously approved by the committee. Nominated by Fernando Collor, Marco Aurélio and Ilmar Galvão also passed unanimously. Carlos Velloso, also Collor’s choice, was approved with a “favorable opinion”, without official record of unanimity in the panel.
Minister Ellen Gracie, appointed by FHC in 2000, was the first woman to sit on the STF court. It was unanimously approved by the CCJ (23 to 0) and, in the plenary, it received 67 votes in favor, none against and only 2 abstentions.
