Brazil’s AGU weighs bypassing Mendonça by appealing directly to Fachin over PF chief’s removal

Brazil’s Solicitor General’s Office is considering an unusually direct challenge to the removal of Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues, asking Supreme Court President Edson Fachin to suspend the injunction behind the decision.

The strategy would allow the AGU to bypass the Supreme Court’s Second Panel, which has already formed a majority in favor of maintaining the injunction issued by Justice André Mendonça. A suspension of an injunction is considered an “exceptionally exceptional” instrument at the Supreme Court and is rarely used to block decisions by its own justices.

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exceptionally exceptional

AGU Minister Jorge Messias could file the appeal on Tuesday. The office argues that the Supreme Court cannot remove the Federal Police chief because the measure violates the president’s exclusive authority to appoint and dismiss the head of the agency.

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serious facts identified

Mendonça’s ruling also removed Federal Police intelligence director Leandro Almada da Costa. The justice ordered the agency’s internal affairs division to open criminal and administrative disciplinary investigations into what he called “serious facts identified” in the preparation of intelligence reports.

The dispute follows the release of investigative material concerning the relationship between Alexandre de Moraes and Daniel Vorcaro. Two days after Mendonça lifted the secrecy covering that investigation, Moraes disclosed excerpts from a Federal Police intelligence report. The report said Mendonça “shows an interest in the opening of a formal investigation” into Banco Master and the INSS scandal. It also said, while stressing that it had no evidentiary value, that Mendonça appeared to take different positions on suspicions involving Justices Dias Toffoli and Nunes Marques compared with those involving Moraes.

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shows an interest in the opening of a formal investigation