Bolsonaro and his legislative parting shots

On his final working day as Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro issued a provisional decree that suspended fines for professional drivers who fail to take toxicology tests. It was his last gift to truckers, a group he pandered to during his administration. 

It was not the only parting shot, either. 

A lame duck since his electoral defeat on October 30, Mr. Bolsonaro secluded himself. He hardly spoke in the 60 days that followed the runoff against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and did not host his traditional Thursday live broadcasts on social media.

Still, he found time to make a series of controversial measures, most of which were carried out with help from his allies in Congress.

Amnesty for a massacre

There is a tradition for every Brazilian president to issue a collective — and often controversial — pardon at Christmas. President Bolsonaro’s final pardon, however, was arguably the most contentious, granting reprieve to several police officers. One article of the decree was tailor-made to benefit the law-enforcement agents who carried out the Carandiru massacre in 1992, the deadliest case of prison violence in Brazil’s recent history.

The slaughter of 111 inmates at the Carandiru prison in São Paulo was fundamental to the creation of the First Capital Command (PCC) crime faction one year later. The PCC has since grown to become what the U.S. government has described as “the...