The movement had been hinted at for months, but that did not stop it from attracting attention: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, has nominated the lawyer who defended him in the "Lava Jato" case, one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of Latin America, as a member of the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
Cristiano Zanin, lawyer and friend of Lula, is the name that must be approved in the Senate, and despite the objections that exist in the opposition, Lula is expected to achieve his objective: 35 of the 81 members of the Senate have had or have criminal investigations opened in the STF. Antagonizing the court is not the best of ideas.
"You already expected me to name Zanin, the whole world expected it, not only because of the role he played in my defense, but simply because Zanin will become a great minister of the Supreme Court," Lula said Thursday night during a press conference with the president of Finland.
"I know his qualities as a lawyer, as a family head, and I know Zanin's trajectory," Lula said. "He will be an exceptional Supreme Court Justice if approved by the Senate, and I think he will, and I think Brazil will be proud to have Zanin as a Supreme Court Justice."
Ciro Nogueira, who leads the Bolsonaro bench in the Senate, anticipated that he will not vote against Zanin's appointment.
"The right to appoint a Supreme Court minister belongs to the President of the Republic. If he meets the constitutional precepts to be elected, he has no reason to reject it," said Nogueira, who was head of the Civil House (a kind of first minister) of Bolsonaro.
"I do not want to enter here if it is Zanin, Pedro or João. But not because you disagree, you will vote against a government candidate if he meets all the requirements for the position," added Nogueira, who was subjected to al least seven investigations opened by the STF, the first of which 21 years ago. One of them, linked to the 'Lava Jato', is still open. He was accused of passive corruption and money laundering for having received almost two million dollars from the construction firm Odebrecht.
The Brazilian political tradition indicates that the Senate does not reject a name proposed by the president. Zanin should be confirmed as STF minister in a question and answer session that usually lasts between eight and 12 hours. Thus, the opposition to Lula's passage will be a minority, with Senator Sergio Moro as the main exponent.
Moro is the one who, in his role as a judge in Curitiba, sent Lula to jail for 580 days between 2018 and 2019 for passive corruption and money laundering, also as part of the 'Lava Jato'. The sentence was annulled by the STF when it determined that the Curitiba court was not competent in the case.
Lula, who has Moro between his eyebrows, said months ago in a radio interview that he will not rest until he "fucks" Moro. The current senator and former Justice Minister of Bolsonaro, in turn, plans a strong campaign on social networks, a very powerful weapon in Brazil, to disqualify Zanin's nomination for the STF.
Zanin is not affiliated with any political party, but has defended Lula in criminal cases since 2013, despite the fact that his specialty is civil and procedural law. The annulment of Lula's convictions by the STF came from appeals signed by Zanin, who could soon be one of the 11 judges that make up the court of last instance in the Brazilian judicial system, precisely that same STF.
Lula's lawyer is married to Valeska Teixeira Zanin Martins, daughter of Roberto Teixeira, a founding member of Lula's Workers' Party (PT). On the website of the law firm that Zanin and his wife share, it is highlighted that they are "experts in dealing with lawfare, an illegitimate way of using the law that has been adopted by some national and international authorities to obtain political, geopolitical, economic and military".
The 'lawfare' is used insistently by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, former president of Argentina, and Rafael Correa, former president of Ecuador, to explain their convictions for corruption. Both coincided in their governments with the first two presidential terms of Lula, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2011 before arriving for the third time at the Planalto palace on January 1 of this year.
If Zanin joins the STF, as expected, the highest court of justice in Brazil reflects in its composition the political evolution of recent years: there will be three magistrates nominated by Lula, four by Dilma Rousseff, one by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, one by Michel Temer and two by Jair Bolsonaro.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
