Supreme Court rules out putschist interpretation of Constitution

While the approval ratings of democratic institutions have gone up in Brazil recently, polls show that voters do not feel fully represented by the political class. In recent years, the Brazilian far-right has tried to tap into that dissatisfaction to compel the country’s Armed Forces to step in and reboot the political system by force. One rhetorical avenue of that strategy has been to evoke Article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution, which deals with the role of the country’s Armed Forces.

As The Brazilian Report has shown since 2020, the article was extensively quoted during Jair Bolsonaro’s term to falsely claim that he legally had the power to call for a military intervention, a dog-whistle term for a coup. 

Article 142 defines the Armed Forces as “permanent and regular national institutions” that can, “on the initiative of any [branch of government],” guarantee law and order in the country. The terms “Article 142” or simply “142” were repeatedly seen on banners and signs during pro-Bolsonaro (and anti-democratic) demonstrations. 

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the then-president organized a rally in front of the presidential palace. One sign read: “Enough with Congress and the Supreme Court!! 142 now.”

Also in 2020, as Mr. Bolsonaro waged a longstanding campaign to discredit Brazil’s electoral system and eventually justify a coup, conservative legal scholar Ives Gandra argued in a specialized legal website that Article 142 defines the Armed Forces as a “moderating power” to settle disputes between the three branches of government. At the time, Angela Gandra, one of Mr. Gandra’s daughters, served in the Bolsonaro administration as national family secretary in the Human Rights Ministry.

Mr. Gandra’s interpretation was broadly cited by the far-right and widely rejected by mainstream legal scholars.

In June 2020, soon after Mr. Bolsonaro’s rally, the left-wing Democratic Labor Party (PDT) filed a petition requesting the Supreme Court to disallow the putschist interpretations of Article 142. Mr. Gandra is explicitly cited in the petition as a “reactionary” who corroborates the “arrogance” of “sectors...