{"id":181003,"date":"2021-03-15T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=181003"},"modified":"2021-03-14T08:23:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-14T08:23:43","slug":"lulas-return-could-save-brazilian-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/lulas-return-could-save-brazilian-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lula\u2019s Return Could Save Brazilian Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

With former Brazilian president Lula da Silva now eligible to run in next year\u2019s election, Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s grip on power is looking weaker than ever before. Amid the tide of reaction, Lula\u2019s return means there is finally some hope for democracy and social justice in Brazil.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former president, speaks during a press conference after convictions against him were annulled at the Sindicato dos Metalurgicos do ABC on March 10, 2021, in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil.
(Alexandre Schneider\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Mar 2021 – <\/em>On March 8, Brazil was greeted with the unexpected news that Supreme Federal Court justice Edson Fachin had annulled all convictions of former president Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva. Prior to that decision, Lula was still facing indictment and minor offense convictions, making him ineligible for political office under Brazilian law. The court\u2019s enormously significant decision makes Lula eligible to run in the 2022 presidential race, though it still remains for the indictments to be definitively withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that Lula was released from prison in 2019 on the heels of the Vaza Jato (Car Wash) leaks<\/a>, the decision that freed him was not based on The Intercept<\/em>\u2019s revelations<\/a> of legal conspiracy. Instead, he was released after 580 days thanks to a Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruling that anyone in the process of a legal appeal should remain free during trial proceedings (a ruling that reversed the STF\u2019s previous decision in the run-up to the 2018 elections, made under duress from the military and in violation of the Constitution).The decision to release Lula resolved, as it were, two issues. On the one hand, it freed the Brazilian justice from the embarrassment of keeping Lula in prison, after it was revealed by the actions of a hacker that then-judge S\u00e9rgio Moro arranged the conviction with the accusers. On the other hand, it spared Moro, who at that time was Bolsonaro\u2019s minister of justice, the biggest beneficiary of Lula\u2019s arrest, since the judicial plot, although it served as a backdrop, was not the reason for Lula\u2019s release.<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Protesters rallying in support of Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(photo: Andre Penner\/AP)<\/p><\/div>\n

While the most recent turn of events is certainly a victory for Lula, the decision represents yet another attempt by the STF to avoid further investigation into the abuses committed during Operation Car Wash. Its decision rested on the technical ruling that Lula could not be tried in the city of Curitiba \u2014 not on the fact that he was the victim of collusion between Moro and federal prosecutors. As if to prove that point, efforts led by Justice Gilmar Mendes to reach a decision on alleged collusion were blocked on March 9 by Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, Bolsonaro\u2019s appointee to the Brazilian supreme court.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n

A Ruling for Freedom, and a Half-Truth<\/h1>\n

The rationale for Justice Edson Fachin\u2019s decision is simple: Lula\u2019s defense filed a habeas corpus and the justice \u2014 alone, as is allowed in such circumstances \u2014 decided that a Federal Court of Curitiba was not competent to judge the case. The decision is absolutely correct, but also ironic, since the famous 13th Court of the Federal Judiciary in Curitiba has presided over every type of indictment with only the remotest \u2014 and often dubious \u2014 connection to corruption in the state-owned Petrobras corporation. These corruption trials have been treated as one enormous, monolithic scheme \u2014 even though Petrobras itself is not based in Curitiba but in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the bribes that Lula allegedly received \u2014 in exchange for what<\/em>, S\u00e9rgio Moro himself claims to have no knowledge \u2014 had nothing to do with Curitiba, and Lula has never lived nor done business in the capital city of Paran\u00e1. As jurist L\u00eanio Streck reminds us<\/a>, the Curitiba court, then under Moro\u2019s control, was always incompetent to judge Lula.<\/p>\n