STF crisis demands full disclosure or risks becoming an endless war

Brazil’s crisis around the Supreme Federal Court has become a crisis of government, according to this analysis, because strategic relationships, tactical alliances and political affinities among senior officials connect all three branches of power.

The solution, it argues, cannot simply be placed “on the shoulders” of Justice Edson Fachin, as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tried during one of several attempts to distance himself from the confrontation inside the court. The moment requires presidential leadership. If there is room for mediation, the article says Lula must lead an effort to reorganize the institutions without violating their constitutional powers.

That task cannot be carried out alone. The president would need an environment around him willing to seek agreement and clarify allegations of conflicts of interest. The article says that process must rise above personal friendships, institutional protection, ideological passions, selective readings, displays of force, legal obstruction and electoral interests.

It asks whether that demand is excessive and whether Brazil has reached a point from which rationality cannot return. But it rejects further escalation as an option. All sides, it says, must put their cards on the table, including a broad opening of confidential information and swift, transparent decisions.

Otherwise, the article warns, there may be no one left to tell the sad story of a democracy whose recovery was lost because its institutions failed to respect their own duties, rights and limits.