Rapporteur of a code of conduct for the (Supreme Federal Court), the minister preached this Monday (1st) impartiality and transparency in Brazilian courts and demanded ethics from judges. She participated in a congress in Brasília that is a kind of counterpoint to the Lisbon Forum, an event led by and which became known as “Gilmarpalooza”.
In her speech, the minister defended that the Judiciary must act with integrity, “without forgetting that judges are human”, but demanded that the judge who is not committed to an ethical stance be “appointed”.
“I believe in the Brazilian Judiciary, in Brazilian judges, and I know that [existem] possible flaws, and they exist. We are a group of human people, with our flaws, our limits, our mistakes, but also with a great desire to get things right”, he declared.
“That’s what we need: to educate society democratically so that it knows what it can expect from us and we also know what they expect from us. What we can and have a constitutional and legal duty to provide, to ensure that the institutions we are part of are duly highly trustworthy and not distrusted”, he added.
The STF minister spoke during the first panel of the “International Congress – Rule of Law and Judicial Ethics”, held by the (Superior Court of Justice). The event features participants from supreme courts from other countries, such as Portugal, where “Gilmarpalooza” is held.
As shown by SheetGilmar Mendes and prominent figures to reinforce the invitation to the forum this year, especially to members of the STJ, amid the tensions caused by the case of and after the defense of a code of ethics by the president of the STF, .
In an interview, the dean of the STF attended the event and countered criticisms about hosting the forum outside the country and receiving authorities who later became the target of investigations.
Fachin will participate in the second day of the STJ congress, this Tuesday (2). He will speak on the panel “Judicial Ethics: The Brazilian Perspective”, at 9:15 am.
In her speech, Cármen Lúcia nodded to the president of the court, minister Herman Benjamin, and stated that the event must be “taken very seriously” so that magistrates can find instruments to overcome what she considers to be a permanent crisis of risks to democracy.
According to her, the law continues to be the “salvation for a strong democracy” and, therefore, there is no other way than to trust it.
“We continue to need judges who have courage in a world in which there is a risk of democratic erosion in several countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia. We want the law to be constructed and enforced by judges, with independence so that people can trust,” he said.
The minister also cited the crisis of public trust facing the STF, currently in its , according to a Datafolha survey released in May, and stated that the challenge is to provide a reliable response to the population and also ensure independence and impartiality to judges.
She also stated that one of the biggest problems that the courts have today is the issue relating to technologies, such as social networks. According to her, the “super-fast” dissemination of false information about judges can contaminate the credibility of institutions.
“A person loses a case and starts to hate the Judiciary and spread hate speech and this dissemination can destroy the reliability of the Judiciary. [só] of a judge in a given municipality. This has been a problem for the judge to act independently and impartially. It has not been an easy life for judges, for example, in the interior of Brazil”, he declared.
The minister at the beginning of February, but has not yet presented her text.
