The pandemic engages in a naked constitutional power struggle in Brazil

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Brazil’s Supreme Court took only five days to act, Jair Bolsonaro Last month, the government cancelled the census on the grounds of the Covid-19 pandemic and budget constraints.

Justice Marco Aurélio ordered the government to change its position and conduct a constitutional decennial investigation, which was postponed once last year. He said: “The Supreme Court decides to take measures to make population studies feasible.”

For many people, this ruling, like other rulings taken by the Supreme Court during the coronavirus pandemic, is a welcome ruling that supports scientific and evidence-based decision making. But it is also a reminder of how active the highest judicial body is in Brazilian politics.

Since the far-right former army captain Bolsonaro took office for more than two years, the so-called STF court has become a bastion against the extreme behavior of certain populist leaders.

For judicial officers and judges close to the courts, this activist position is permitted by Brazil’s far-reaching constitution, and the president’s authoritarian tendencies and opposition to the pandemic also prove this activist. Position. For critics, the justices engage in “judicial activism” to legitimize the court’s rulings.

Those in between have seen a vicious circle in which both sides learn from each other’s strengths and gradually weaken Brazil’s already fragile institutions.

“Obviously, STF has been a human rights defender for some time [and] Become more and more. The most fundamental problem at present is that our senior executives have almost no standards and are completely unable to work properly. “Johns Hopkins University professor Filipe Campante (Filipe Campante) said.

“When the executive is completely unable to perform basic functions, other powers will be forced to intervene. But this will feed back to the dysfunction because they should not do it. It satisfies the confrontation that Bolsonaro depends on.”

Campant said that the census is an example, which is “an extremely basic function of the state.” [that] Facts have proved that executives are unable and unwilling to do so. “

However, the Covid-19 epidemic (which even claimed the lives of 430,000 Brazilians) has exposed the tension between the 11-member Supreme Court and the executive branch in an even more cruel way.

According to court statistics, in the past year, STF has made 9,000 pandemic-related decisions. Most of these rulings support mainstream scientific methods to tackle the virus, including the use of lockdowns and social distancing, and the import of vaccines.

However, they angered Bolsonaro, who has been playing down the severity of the disease and trying to reopen the local economy closed by the governor. Last year, when populist leaders participated in a rally calling for the closure of the court, tensions reached a peak. After that, he pushed the League of Congress to try to impeach the ST STF judge.

“In Brazil, we live at a very unique moment, full of many conflicts, and the pandemic has greatly enhanced this situation. Those who try to reduce this disease include those who are close to the government and those who advise caution. There is a clear gap.” Justice Gilmar Mendes told the Financial Times.

“The courts have always been a place of criticism for those who support these measures against racism. They say that we have deprived us of the ability to enforce it, but we are convinced that we have fulfilled our duties within the constitutional framework.” Mend Said. He himself was accused by critics of politicizing this work.

Judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court are appointed by the President until retirement at the age of 75. Of the 11 members, 7 were appointed by the former left-wing Workers’ Party government. Last year, Bolsonaro appointed one.

Most of the court’s power comes from the scale and scope of the Brazilian Constitution, which has more than 70,000 words, and is one of the longest and most detailed constitutions in the world. The breadth of the charter allows STF to judge the legitimacy of various issues.

“This makes the STF the center of Brazilian political debate. If the president can even rely on the support of the legislature to attack the constitution, the court’s job is to impose restrictions.” said Eloísa Machado, professor of constitutional law at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

Opponents say that, however, the court’s interpretation of the constitution increasingly constitutes “judicial activism,” which deprives the legitimacy of its authority.

Anajure President Uziel Santana (Uziel Santana) Gospel The Bar Association said that a decision made by the STF last month to allow states and municipalities to ban in-person religious services during the pandemic was “defective from a technical and legal point of view.”

Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin abolished the corruption conviction of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silv. © AFP via Getty Images

“The Supreme Court is not the legislator, [but] In recent years, it has become more and more legislative. This activism eventually caused too much interference within the scope of another force, which is not a good thing in a democratic country under the rule of law,” he said.

For Santana, a specific issue is the frequency of so-called dictatorship decisions, in which case a single judge can rule on issues that have a wide-ranging impact on society. According to the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, between 1988 and 2018, more than 72% of cases ended in dictatorship decisions.

Recently, Justice Edson Fachin single-handedly abolished the corruption conviction of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and restored left-wing leadership before next year’s election. People’s political rights. After the state prosecutor filed an appeal, the decision was passed by a unanimous vote in the plenary meeting.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has been deeply politicized to some extent, but what’s worse in Brazil is that you don’t have a political party and you have interests. Judges have political interests and make decisions based on political interests.”

“You are in a situation where everything they decide has lost legitimacy. In your opinion: “What are the political interests behind this? “

Additional reporting from Place, North Carolina

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