Dozens of members of the Brazilian Congress aligned with former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday filed a request to impeach Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso over political statements he made last week.
“We defeated Bolsonarism,” the justice said during an event organized by Brazil’s biggest student union. On the occasion, Mr. Barroso was being booed for having suspended the implementation of a higher nursing wage floor back in September 2022. “We defeated censorship, we defeated torture, we defeated Bolsonarism to allow democracy and free demonstration by all people,” he responded to the hecklers.
In making these statements, Justice Barroso “completely stripped himself of any trace of the institutionality his position requires,” lawmakers say in their impeachment request — which is co-signed by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son. They add that the justice used a tone and gestures “typical of political rallies.”
The document will be signed by 70 House members and 15 senators, according to Senator Jorge Seif, one of the proponents. Their effort in collecting signatures, he says, has been hindered by the legislative recess currently running through to August.
Justice Barroso’s comments were met with intense backlash — even sparking strong words from the usually mild-mannered Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco, who called the statement “unfortunate, inappropriate, and untimely.”
The justice recanted his remarks, saying he did not intend “to offend the 58 million voters of the former president, nor criticize a conservative democratic worldview, which is legitimate.”
The Supreme Court has been a lightning rod for criticism from politicians, who have filed more than 70 impeachment requests against justices between 2018 and 2022. Mr. Bolsonaro spurred that drive by routinely attacking the justice system for allegedly “persecuting” him. None of these requests, however, has been given any importance in the Senate. Most have already been shelved.
Senate President Pacheco has already said that impeachment would be “very negative” and a “rupture.” Political analyst Leonardo Barreto, director at consulting cabinet Vector Análise, says Mr. Pacheco is “not an incendiary politician” and expects the new impeachment request to meet the same fate as previous ones.
In the entire history of the Supreme Court, the only case of a justice being removed from office occurred in 1894. It happened to Barata Ribeiro — who was nixed because he was a doctor, not a lawyer, and considered unqualified for the job.
The recent claim against Mr. Barroso is the sixth such request presented this year. Another four involve Justice Alexandre de Moraes, considered to be Jair Bolsonaro’s nemesis.
Justice Moraes has already been the target of at least 40 impeachment requests in recent years, including one signed by the former president himself. In 2021, Mr. Bolsonaro claimed that Justice Moraes was personally attacking him through investigations. He intended to accuse Justice Barroso as well, who at the time was head of the Superior Electoral Court, but gave up after the first request was dismissed.
Last weekend, Justice Moraes and his family were harassed at an airport in Rome, Italy, by three Brazilians. Feds raided the homes of the alleged aggressors on Tuesday, authorized by Chief Justice Rosa Weber.
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