Bricklayer: Supreme Court pulls a fast one to keep Lula in jail

By Fernando Brito, from brick - The complaint filed by Lula's defense with the Second Panel of the Supreme Federal Court will likely not have an immediate legal effect, because there is a clear extra-legal impediment to any decision that would release the former president, even provisionally, while he fights for the review of the absurd sentences imposed on him.

But, to the shame of the Supreme Court, it will be of immense value to legal historians, because it describes something that will not be erased from the history of the supreme court (in this case, indeed, in lowercase).

It is a detailed account of how "trickery" was used to circumvent the natural course of the process and prevent the case from being judged by those who should have judged it – and who, in the case of José Dirceu, were judged by it: the Second Chamber of the Supreme Federal Court.

Here, on the part of a Supreme Court Justice, Luiz Edson Fachin, is a circumvention of an essential constitutional principle: that of the natural judge.

Article 5, XXXVII – there shall be no court or tribunal of exception;" (...)

Article 5, LIII – no one shall be prosecuted or sentenced except by the competent authority;

Cleverly, the complaint reproduces the highly unsuspected arguments of the anti-Lula press to demonstrate that it is evident that "there would have been a deliberate intention to refer the Claimant's case for consideration by another collegiate body for fear that the outcome of the judgment by his natural judge, the 2nd Panel, could lead to a result that would be favorable to him - a situation apparently undesirable to the Rapporteur [Edson Fachin]."

It's irrefutable, and that's the reason for the anonymous "message" sent through Monica Bergamo's column in Folha, warning that "Lula would not have been released if his appeal had been judged on Tuesday."

The alleged difference between the former president's case and the others analyzed on Tuesday is that the full Supreme Court had already deemed the imprisonment legitimate when it denied him the habeas corpus that could have prevented it, in April.

The examination of the request to suspend the extraordinary appeal is a different matter from that dealt with in the "habeas corpus" denied by the Plenary, where a guarantee against imprisonment was requested in light of what the STF had previously decided – that imprisonment "could" happen, contrary to the policy of the TRF-4, flagrantly insubordinate to the Court, saying that it "must" necessarily be done.

What is being requested now is that, given the plausibility of the arguments presented in the appeal, the conviction be granted a stay of execution, because if the reasons are ultimately recognized, there would be no way to restore the denied freedom.

It was not a case for sending it to the full court, but rather for judging it in the Second Chamber, as the same appeal had been scheduled for Tuesday at the initiative of Edson Fachin himself.

The TRF-4's cunning refusal to admit the appeal does not, of course, change its content or nature. Therefore, the adjudicating body remains unchanged.

Or it shouldn't change.

The message published in Folha contains the key to what is intended: to "exchange" with Lula the granting of "house arrest" that does not remove his status as a "prisoner" and does not create, by granting a stay of execution of the sentence during the appeal process, an obstacle to even discussing the former president's eligibility.

And that's not called justice, it's called blackmail.