He Is Brazil's Defender of Democracy. Is He Actually Good for Democracy?

[Judi Lynn]

Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, was crucial to Brazil’s transfer of power. But his aggressive tactics are prompting debate: Can one go too far to fight the far right?

By Jack Nicas

Jack Nicas, who covers Brazil for The Times, has written extensively about the nation’s debate over judicial power. He reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Jan. 22, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET

When Brazil’s highway police began holding up buses full of voters on Election Day, he ordered them to stop. When right-wing voices spread the baseless claim that Brazil’s election was stolen, he ordered them banned from social media. And when thousands of right-wing protesters stormed Brazil’s halls of power this month, he ordered the officials who had been responsible for securing the buildings arrested.

Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, has taken up the mantle of Brazil’s lead defender of democracy. Using a broad interpretation of the court’s powers, he has pushed to investigate and prosecute, as well as to silence on social media, anyone he deems a menace to Brazil’s institutions.

Yet to many others in Brazil, he is threatening it. Mr. de Moraes’s aggressive approach and expanding authority have made him one of the nation’s most powerful people, and also put him at the center of a complicated debate in Brazil over how far is too far to fight the far right.

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[Judi Lynn]

1. After the opening of the article, having awareness of years of NY Times' previous LatAm reporters,

I felt it would be appropriate to look around a little for more information on the NY Times previous work on recent Brazil events, found the following article:

MARCH 8, 2021

NYT Fails to Examine Its Participation in Brazil’s ‘Biggest Judicial Scandal’

BRIAN MIER

The Brazilian Supreme Court on March 8 dismissed all charges against former President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva made during the Lava Jato investigation, a little over a month after the investigation was officially ended. The termination came shortly after the Supreme Court admitted 6 terabytes of leaked Telegram chats between public prosecutors and judges as evidence in the case.

A small portion of the leaks, released slowly by the Intercept Brasil and local media partners in 107 articles, revealed that Judge Sergio Moro illegally instructed prosecutors in cases he was ruling on; these leaks also exposed dozens of secret, illegal meetings with agents of the US FBI. Lula’s defense lawyers have now released new, devastating information, in the context of a series of motions to dismiss.

In one conversation, Lava Jato taskforce chief Delton Dallagnol refers to Lula’s imprisonment as a gift from the CIA. The leaks also show that many coerced plea bargain testimonies were totally fabricated, including a frivolous case that resulted in the suicide of the dean of Santa Catarina Federal University, and that Dallagnol nicknamed them “outsourced testimonies.”

None of these revelations came as a surprise to Brazilians who have been reading legal blogs and the major independent media for the last five years. Many groups have been critical of Lava Jato from the moment Sergio Moro first froze operations at Brazil’s five largest construction companies in 2015.

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https://fair.org/home/nyt-fails-to-examine-its-participation-in-brazils-biggest-judicial-scandal/