Ostracism towards the PT (Workers' Party) marks Barbosa's worldview.
Judicial sentences are not intended to rehabilitate or resocialize; they serve to exile and separate the condemned from society; ostracism is the only option for outcasts, declared the president of the Supreme Federal Court; Joaquim Barbosa wanted to pose as an Athenian and democratic figure; however, he forgot to mention that the ten-year banishment sentence was only given after being re-evaluated on appeal in a second popular assembly; even while in progress, such a drastic punishment could be suspended by a third meeting of citizens; Barbosa's autocracy is more reminiscent of the tyranny in Ancient Greece, whose defenders were punished with... ostracism.
Marco Damiani 247 – The president of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Joaquim Barbosa, made clear an important part of his worldview when he declared, during his European vacation, that those convicted in AP 470 deserve "ostracism." Despite having earned him the reputation of being a ruthless and hot-tempered judge, Barbosa hopes that, from now on, figures like former PT presidents José Dirceu and José Genoíno, former Speaker of the House João Paulo Cunha, and former PT treasurer Delúbio Soares will be forgotten, banished, ignored by society for at least the next ten years, as happened in Ancient Greece.
Barbosa could have wished that the convicts would diligently serve their sentences, and use their nearly decade-long punishments to reflect and seek rehabilitation – or re-education, as it's called in the penal system. But what he actually said is that he hopes the convicts will be erased from collective memory.
In Athens, those ostracized had to leave the city-state ten days after the sentence was announced. Given the weight of time and the moral humiliation inherent in the punishment, Athenians sought to be very careful in the decision-making process regarding ostracism. In an initial assembly, the politician accused of legislating in their own self-interest or in favor of a return to tyranny was subjected to a vote by all.
If the punishment determined was ostracism, a new assembly was called a week later to confirm the previous one. A clear form of appeal.
Only if the second assembly repeated the result of the first was the penalty applied. The condemned person would then have ten days to leave the island for ten years. Their goods and belongings would await them, legally protected. During the decade of exile, a new assembly could be convened, in light of some new fact, to ratify or not the vote of the two previous ones. In practice, there were two chances for a condemned person to defend themselves.
In the case of the Barbosa-style ostracism decree, even defendants who were not entitled to the Supreme Court's jurisdiction were judged there without any a priori possibility of appeal. A single sentence about their lives, with no chance of recourse.
Exercising his right to sarcasm, which he already demonstrated when he stated in Paris last week that the criticism regarding his vacation trip being framed by R$ 14 in per diem payments from the government was "utter nonsense," Barbosa continues to laugh heartily.
In Athens around 400 BC, politicians like Hipparchus, Megacles, and Hyperbolus entered history as those condemned to ostracism. Their names were inscribed on shards of pottery to mark them for at least ten years, recording the length of their sentence. They were accused of acting for personal gain or in favor of tyranny.
In Brazil in 2014, the conviction without right of appeal carried out by Joaquim Barbosa resembles an attack against democracy that, in Greece, was punished with... ostracism.