The Rule of the Courts

The Role of Courts in Guaranteeing Fundamental Rights

manner, beyond its institutional authority and in areas where it lacked sufficient institutional capacity. This form of judicial conduct generated substantial criticism from legal scholars and academics, who argued that the courts were acting abusively. Nevertheless, judicial institutions sustained a moral narrative of legitimacy grounded in legislative omission and received considerable popular and media support. Along this trajectory, one might argue that the Judiciary became increasingly attached to its prominence and popularity, gradually adopting interpretations that expanded its concen tration of power. Amid intense political conflict – culminating in the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the emergence of major corruption scandals – the Judiciary positioned itself as a guardian of morality and assumed a self-appointed role as savior of the nation, often in disregard of constitutional limits. The “Lava Jato Operation” marked a decisive turning point, during which the Judiciary indisputably violated numerous fundamental rights. It is essential to understand that Operation Lava Jato was a coordinated effort involving the Federal Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the Judiciary. In the name of combating corruption, it relativized several consti tutionally protected guarantees of the right to defense and relied on coordinated actions among its agents to advance a punitive agenda contrary to the legal order. Its functioning also depended heavily on media strategies that constructed a narrative criminalizing the other branches of government, political actors, and public officials in general, thereby securing public support for abusive practices and unlawful arrests. The judicial hub in Curitiba, led by then-Judge Sérgio Moro, was only able to exercise power in such an abusive manner because it received the backing of Brazilian courts and the Federal Supreme Court itself. One might argue that those who supported Lava Jato in good faith were naïve in believing that the moral regeneration of a country and the strengthening of democracy could result from distorted practices that depended on antidemocratic mechanisms, concentration of power, and the weakening of fundamental rights. Meanwhile, those who participated with ulterior motives pursued an explicit project of power. As my colleague Rubens Glezer aptly observed in an article published in Revista Piauí :

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