Brazil is functioning under a state of democratic normality and the rule of law. The Supreme Court is addressing legal gaps resulting from legislative inaction by Congress.
> The Supreme Court is addressing legal gaps resulting from legislative inaction by Congress.
You just admitted it yourself.
The unelected supreme court is legislating.
They have usurped the functions of the legislative branch. They do not represent us: not a single brazilian citizen voted for these judges. Yet everything they write is law. Worse: they frequently nullify the efforts of our actual representatives in a completely monocratic manner.
They often engage in "judicial activism" where they "creatively interpret" laws and generally make things up on the spot. Not too long ago they regulated social media by arbitrarily declaring the existing law unconstitutional and somehow reinterpreting it to mean the exact opposite of what the law said. They privatized their censorship by making social media companies liable for user content. Now the companies have to proactively censor everything the courts might take issue with, lest they get slapped with totally arbitrary fines and nationwide ISP blocks.
They've usurped the functions of the executive branch too. Not too long ago they raised taxes on all brazilians. Our president raised taxes, our congress blocked it, then the supreme court overrode our elected congress. The president is ruling through the court, just like in Venezuela.
They're also the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners...
The only possible logical conclusion is that Brazil is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship of the unelected judiciary. They are judge-god-kings.
> First it launched the “fake news inquiry,” making itself the initiator, investigator and judge. This was a violation of the constitutional rights of Brazilians, who are entitled to have their criminal cases tried in local and state courts, with charges brought by local and state prosecutors.
> In July 2021 they launched a “digital militia inquiry,” targeting tech companies and their platforms. It forced them to censor content and demonetize Brazilians who held opinions that the court found unacceptable. Failure to comply meant the companies could no longer operate in Brazil.
> The justice made the tribunal notably more political than it had been by actively monitoring the speech of parties, candidates and citizens and censoring those with whom he disagreed.
> Around 1,500 suspects were rounded up and some kept in prison for up to a year awaiting trial. Some were hit with severe sentences for minor transgressions.
Regulating speech, suppressing peaceful dissent, and ignoring the right to due process and a fair trial is immoral, everywhere.
Agreed with due process, but look at how Germany treats Nazis. Speech and expression related to Nazism is heavily regulated and subjects you to imprisonment. Demonstrations/rallies are often banned. The Nazi party itself is banned. AfD is being monitored by intelligence agencies and might be banned in the future, etc. They do this defensively when groups demonstrate an "actively belligerent, aggressive stance" towards the democratic order. But yes, it would be better if all this in Brazil was formalized like in Germany.
> When electronic voting machines are deployed, it must be possible for the citizen to check the essential steps in the election act and in the ascertainment of the results reliably and without special expert knowledge.
> In a republic, elections are a matter for the entire people and a joint concern of all citizens.
> Consequently, the monitoring of the election procedure must also be a matter for and a task of the citizen.
> Each citizen must be able to comprehend and verify the central steps in the elections.
A very wise judgement, in my opinion.
In Brazil, voting machines are mandated. The supreme court judges have declared that these machines are perfect and UNQUESTIONABLE. Multiple attempts to add an auditable paper trail to the machines were made by our elected representatives, and they were also deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court.
The most actively belligerent, aggressive stance towards the democratic order is that of the supreme court itself. Brazil is not even a democracy to begin with. Not a single brazilian voted for these judges, yet they rule monocratically.
I don't like evaluating an entire supreme court based on 1 case. I'm not a 1 issue voter. Often you find people banging on 1 issue actually care about other things the court ruled on, like covid lockdowns, or they really want to discriminate against women and gays, or they're Bolsonaro supporters, etc but they won't say that directly.
Overall I think the court is running a high-risk high-reward strategy. They're trying to act as the ultimate guardian of democracy, by adopting methods that strain democratic principles. Is it smart? Hard to say, depends how it goes 10-50 years from now. Again, I'd prefer if all this was correctly formalized and institutionalized. Get your legislature on board.
... It's not just this one case. I wish it was just one case.
Evaluate their "fake news" inquisition which started all the way back in 2019. You don't even have to take it from me. Here, a detailed comment from another HN user which I saved:
Grab any number of cases where one of the judges favored their own wife's client. They judge the cases brought by the law offices of their families. Conflicts of interest everywhere you look.
Scrutinize the countless times they ignored basic due process rules and violated the constitution. They punish family members for alleged individual crimes: censoring you is not enough, they gotta preemptively censor your family as well. Even though it's literally spelled out in the constitution that both of those things are illegal.
Recent leaked files demonstrate that they formed an illegal intelligence gathering task force whose purpose was to identify the political positions of defendants. They based decisions to arrest on constitutionally protected political speech. People have been arrested for "demonstrating an aversion to Lula and the worker's party". People right here on HN told me it was insane to believe one could be arrested over online comments but here we are.
I asked actual freaking lawyers what their thought about these decisions. They shook their heads. "Instead of applying the law, the supreme court decided to legislate", one told me. "Judges = gods", said another. It's completely fucked up.
It's much bigger than Bolsonaro. It doesn't even matter who's president since it's these guys who have the real power. Back then the left also used to complain about their censorship! Now that they're censoring the right they're heroes? Absolute nonsense.
> Overall I think the court is running a high-risk high-reward strategy.
It's not their place to run any strategy. They do not represent us. They were not voted into office. They have lifetime mandates for god's sake.
Their purpose is to apply the law as written by our actual representatives. Any attempt to deviate from that role is to usurp the power of our elected representatives. Any so called "activism" and "creative interpretation" is tyranny and evidence of a dictatorship of the judiciary.
The current situation is they could write whatever the hell they wanted on a piece of paper and it would become law. The police does their bidding. They just randomly decided that social media companies are liable for user content despite actual laws that say the exact opposite. They raised taxes.
> adopting methods that strain democratic principles
Their methods completely obliterate democratic principles. They are unelected judge-kings engaging in monocratic decision making and partidarian censorship. Please stop talking about democracy, just hearing that word makes me sick.
> Again, I'd prefer if all this was correctly formalized and institutionalized.
I'd prefer the application of Magnitsky sanctions to every single one of them and everyone even remotely connected with them. Trump is quite literally doing God's work here and my only complaint is he hasn't gone far enough yet.
Yeah in US history nobody cried about "liberty" and "freedom" more than the slave owners. Were they right? Technically yes. Do I care? Nah. Not really. Good luck and have fun!
Are you actually comparing me to hypocrite slave owners who talk about freedom while restraining their fellow man? And you think these judges are the righteous resistance against this?
Trump is the party of descendants of those slave owners. If he's on your side, you really should rethink your position. He usually loves autocrats, what do you think is going on?
I think he's the only person on the planet who's doing something about the abuses of the brazilian supreme court. I will forever be grateful to him for it.
The reasons why he's doing it are irrelevant. Maybe he actually likes Bolsonaro that much and wants to save him from the same "lawfare" he suffered. Maybe he wants to leverage the situation into economic advantage by covertly advancing the interests of american corporations. Maybe both. Maybe something else entirely that's escaped my vision. It doesn't matter because things are just too fucked up to care about anything other than the defeat of the judge-kings.
