Professor and constitutional law expert Ives Gandra Martins, 85, threw more gasoline on Brazil’s already explosive political crisis last week when he said — during a social media video broadcast — that President Jair Bolsonaro should evoke Article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution and call a military intervention. Mr. Martins justified his opinion by saying that the Supreme Court’s recent moves — which have included authorizing a criminal investigation against the president and greenlighting a Federal Police operation against some of his closest supporters — were over-politicized and needed correction.
Article 142 concerns the Armed Forces, establishing them as “regular and...