Brazil’s Supreme Court majority backs keeping federal police chief suspended, but Gilmar halts ruling

Brazil’s Supreme Court’s Second Panel formed a majority on Tuesday to uphold the suspension of Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues, but the decision remains formally unfinished after Justice Gilmar Mendes requested more time to examine the case.

Within less than 10 minutes of the virtual session opening, Justices Kassio Nunes Marques and Luiz Fux voted to follow André Mendonça’s order. Their votes indicated that Mendonça, the rapporteur in cases involving Banco Master and the National Social Security Institute, had enough support on the panel.

Mendes’s request for more time carries a 90-day deadline, but it does not alter the practical effect of Mendonça’s injunction. Rodrigues therefore remains removed from the Federal Police command, as does the agency’s intelligence director, Leandro Almada.

The suspensions were principally based on an internal Federal Police report. Justice Alexandre de Moraes used the report to request an investigation into Mendonça for abuse of authority, administrative misconduct and a crime of responsibility.

The report alleged that Mendonça had acted to steer investigations against Moraes and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, of União-AP, “with a breach of judicial impartiality and favoritism toward certain political groups.” Gilmar Mendes’s request has paused the Supreme Court proceeding, but not the interim order itself.

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with a breach of judicial impartiality and favoritism toward certain political groups