No one is a good judge or a bad lawyer when it comes to their own case.

These are just two more, in a series of bravado statements (which I strangely collect), from the recent pronouncements of the President of the TST, Yves Gandra Filho, who finds it utterly unwise to "give a person who receives a minimum wage the same treatment, in terms of compensation for moral damages, as I give to someone who receives a salary of R$ 50." In his opinion as a magistrate, it would be absurd: "It's as if the person had won the lottery." [1]

Just like the current Minister of Human Rights, Luislinda Valois, who has been requesting the accumulation of her retirement benefits as a judge with her salary as head of the Ministry; all of this would amount to around R$ 61 per month. Receiving only R$ 33 and some change, due to the constitutional rule of the salary cap (has she forgotten?), Luislinda begins to ask, astonished: "And how am I going to eat? How am I going to drink? How am I going to buy shoes?"

The work that Luislinda performs at the Palácio do Planalto, for a modest salary, "resembles slave labor," then. [2] The comparison sounds rather emblematic, given that she was one of the first black female judges in the country.

Asked in 2012 about the challenges of being a judge in Brazil, the then President of the STF, Minister Ayres Britto, replied that it was not very easy, as the "career is ceasing to be remuneratively attractive." "The Judiciary is not satisfied," he lamented. [3]

Another President of the TST, Carlos Alberto Reis de Paula, from Minas Gerais, whose paycheck in 2013 (when he had just arrived there) showed the hefty sum of R$ 22, does not hesitate: "If they say it's a lot, I say: it may be for you who earn minimum wage, but for what I do and for my importance, I think it's little. It doesn't matter what the fair value is, I earn little, I affirm that I earn little." [4]

Already in the midst of the trial of ADI No. 4.102/RJ, in 2014, Minister Marco Aurélio objected to a proposal considered by Minister Barroso that some portion of the university budget should also come from donations from alumni (a common practice in the USA), from funds created for that purpose. He deflected the question, brazenly: "Mr. President, I open a parenthesis to say that, if the former University of Brazil, now the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, depended on donations from this alumnus, it would be in very bad shape, given the vow of poverty I made when I embraced the Judiciary and I remain very satisfied to have done so."

Back in 2014, the Chief Justice of the São Paulo Court of Justice, José Renato Nalini, unlike the others, chose to be moderate: "Today, apparently, Brazilian judges earn well," he acknowledges. But it's not much money, "they can't go to Miami all the time to buy suits, because every day of the week they have to wear a different suit, they have to wear a decent shirt, decent shoes, they have to have a car." According to his prediction, a certain financial incentive is needed so that "judges feel a little more cheerful, don't suffer from so much depression, so many panic attacks, so many strokes, etc."

This was said, incidentally, in a smug tone, in the presence and company of a renowned philosopher, Mr. Luiz Felipe Pondé, who seemed to agree, remaining silent. He stayed silent. [5]

Finally, in one of the fateful audios recorded by Sérgio Machado, one can hear the then President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, commenting on the difficulty Dilma had in getting along with the Supreme Court group on the eve of her impeachment: "They don't negotiate because everyone is pissed off with her. She told me, and it's true, in this whole crisis [...]: 'Renan, I received Lewandowski here, wanting to talk a little about a way out for Brazil, about the difficulties, about the need to contain the Supreme Court as guardian of the Constitution. Lewandowski only came to talk about a raise, that's unbelievable'." [6] A chat between gossipy women?

Finally, I'm only presenting a few examples taken from this case. There are many more of them out there. Plenty of them. Perhaps it takes a supreme degree of audacity to consider such recurring statements as mere "gaffes," "slips of the tongue," or something similar.

Furthermore, I am inclined to ask, as Ginzburg did in relation to the miller Menochio in "The Cheese and the Worms" (1976), whether the discourses of members of the Judiciary regarding remuneration and everything that stems from it—money, purchasing power, lifestyle, status, social stratification, etc.—reveal not only a "mentality," typical of the highest-ranking Supreme Court Justice to the most provincial first-instance judge in some remote corner of this Brazil of legal experts.

But first, a proper "culture," associated with a specific class structure.

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[1] http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2017/11/1933111-e-preciso-flexibilizar-direitos-sociais-para-haver-emprego-diz-chefe-do-tst.shtml
[2] http://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2017/11/ministra-cita-trabalho-escravo-ao-reivindicar-vencimentos-de-r-61-mil.html
[3] http://veja.abril.com.br/politica/mensalao-sera-o-julgamento-do-seculo/
[4] http://www.espacovital.com.br/noticia-29135-juiz-ganha-pouco-afirma-novo-presidente-do-tst
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbrQc22CJE0
[6] http://g1.globo.com/politica/operacao-lava-jato/noticia/2016/05/em-gravacao-renan-fala-em-mudar-lei-da-delacao-premiada-diz-jornal.html