The politicization of the judiciary threatens Brazilian democracy.

This year, one of the main anomalies of Brazilian democracy will emerge forcefully. The upcoming trial of the PT's "mensalão" scandal reveals that, of the three pillars of the Republic (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches), one has not undergone the purging of the conservative hegemony stemming from the dictatorship.

Democracy has sought to balance the correlation of political and ideological forces in the Executive and Legislative branches. The renewal of personnel that electoral processes impose on these branches every four or eight years (in this case, in elections for the Federal Senate) allows them to keep pace with society's desire for plurality.

This beneficial effect of democracy, however, does not extend to the third leg of the tripod that sustains the Republic: the Judiciary.

Although the leadership of this branch of government is appointed by the Executive and Legislative branches through the nomination of Supreme Court members by the Executive, with ratification by the Legislative, the rest of the Brazilian judicial system still suffers the effects of decades of conservative control over its institutions.

The workings of the Brazilian justice system, at the retail level, reveal its conservative bias. From the judge who ordered the massacre of thousands of families in the Pinheirinho neighborhood of São José dos Campos to benefit a corrupt rich man, to judicial decisions in the states that serve the interests of media families and their representatives, the political-ideological bias that distorts justice is clear.

Even within the Supreme Federal Court, it is astonishing to note how the trial of the PT's "mensalão" scandal, of interest to the right-wing media, has surpassed, in terms of time, the trials of older scandals (such as the PSDB's mensalão in Minas Gerais), which drag on simply because the media is not interested in them.

All it took was media pressure for the Mensalão trial to be scheduled, illegally bypassing older, dragging-on cases. This demonstrates that even with a Supreme Court renewed by the appointment of judges without political ties, unlike those appointed by governments prior to Lula's, the media's power of blackmail still intimidates the judiciary.

The distrust that society harbors towards the Justice system is evident in the front-page headline of Folha de São Paulo on the first business day of this week, which reports that the CUT (Unified Workers' Central) may take to the streets to protest against the increasingly predictable politicization of the Mensalão trial.

In reality, what one of the media groups that most intimidates the Judiciary is reporting is just the tip of the iceberg of a huge democratic resistance movement against the political tribunal that the media families and the political parties they control are trying to turn the Mensalão trial into, because, in addition to the CUT (Unified Workers' Central), everyone knows that this movement in favor of a technical trial should encompass UNE (National Union of Students), MST (Landless Workers' Movement) and other labor unions.

In effect, the Mensalão trial will also be a trial of justice, because some convictions, if they occur, will be unacceptable as they will be based on no evidence whatsoever. As in the case of José Dirceu, for example, who can only suffer a conviction if the trial is politically motivated because there is absolutely nothing in this process that incriminates him.

In the state courts, then, the situation is astonishing. Those opposed to the media barons suffer absurd convictions in the lower courts, while the media and its cronies are shielded from any complaint regarding the abuses they commit.

In the São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro courts, for example, anyone who confronts the media or its henchmen knows they will lose, only having a chance in higher courts, when cases leave the state courts.

This process of politicizing and ideologizing the judiciary, as well as its susceptibility to media pressure, is becoming more scandalous every day. Journalists who oppose right-wing parties and media groups are suffering curtailment of their right to defense.

Recently, journalists who bother Globo were convicted in practically summary proceedings, with their cases "moving" at a speed that the Justice system rarely displays and under scandalous decisions that even dispense with the production of evidence by the parties, giving reason, in limine, to the representatives of the Marinho family.

Social movements and civil society are therefore organizing to denounce to the world the corruption of the judiciary by the interests of the right-wing media. The streets will be the first step, but the intention is to reach international forums, because the partisanship of the judiciary constitutes the last great threat to Brazilian democracy.