Pro-Bolsonaro caucus to seek impeachment of Supreme Court justice over political remarks

Members of Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party vowed to seek the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, who said Wednesday that he fought “against the [military] dictatorship and Bolsonarism,” adding that “we defeated Bolsonarism.” 

Justice Barroso’s remarks were made during the recent congress of the National Student Union (UNE), which decades ago served as a vector of political action in favor of democracy. The pro-Bolsonaro faction claims the justice committed an impeachable offense by engaging in partisan politics, which he is prohibited from doing.

On Thursday afternoon, Justice Barroso issued a statement to clarify his comments. He said that, when referring to “Bolsonarism,” he meant the “putschist and violent extremism” that manifested itself during the January 8 riots in Brasília.

“I never intended to offend the 58 million voters of the former president, nor criticize a conservative democratic worldview, which is legitimate,” he added.

Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco called the justice’s comments “unfortunate, inappropriate, and untimely.”

Supreme Court justices can be tried by the Senate for impeachable offenses, but such a challenge is the longest of shots (especially as Mr. Bolsonaro’s clout in Congress wanes). 

Mr. Pacheco added that, “without a retraction, Justice Barroso’s remarks could be interpreted as grounds for [impeachment/disqualification].” The Senate president used the word impedimento, which can mean both impeachment and disqualification, when a judge is barred from acting in certain cases due to a lack of impartiality or a prior relationship with a party.

Mr. Bolsonaro faces multiple investigations, including one being carried out by the Supreme Court to determine if the former president incited the January 8 riots.

It remains to be seen if Justice Barroso’s words were enough to put him in the clear — or if the Senate will use the case to send a message, even if the actual removal of the justice is unlikely.

Barking at the judicial system is a core element of Bolsonarism’s modus operandi. For most of his term, Mr. Bolsonaro sought to delegitimize the country’s court system by threatening to disobey rulings, publicly insulting justices, and inciting his supporters in Congress to pursue a congressional hearings committee to investigate the 11 members of the Supreme Court. 

In 2022, he turned his guns on the electoral court system as part of his strategy to sow distrust in the electoral system and lay the groundwork for challenging the election results. The Liberal Party tried unsuccessfully to invalidate the counts from about 60 percent of the voting machines used in the two rounds.

In June, The Brazilian Report told the story of how former diplomats from Brazil and the U.S. championed an effort to unblock semiconductor supplies for electronic voting machines — without which the 2022 election would have been in jeopardy. Justice Luís Roberto Barroso was at the helm of that operation.

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This article was updated to include comments made by Luís Roberto Barroso and Rodrigo Pacheco after it was originally posted.

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