Armchair_Politician wrote on Aug 1^st, 2025 at 4:10pm:



I'm convinced F A T Frank is either severely mentally ill or really that retarded.

greggerypeccary wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2025 at 1:00pm:



He can't help it. It's his default position

Armchair_Politician wrote on Aug 1^st, 2025 at 12:58pm:




Justice Alexandre de Moraes was appointed as the nation’s top electoral officer in August 2022.[4] During the 2022 presidential campaign, he ordered social media outlets to remove thousands of messages and arrested numerous supporters of former President Bolsonaro without a trial.[5] Writing for The New York Times, on 26 September 2022, journalists Jack Nicas and André Spigariol explained that such arbitrary judicial rulings “could have major implications for the winner of the presidential vote”.[6]

Nobody in Brazil is allowed to question the transparency of the last presidential election. Whoever dares to do so “will be treated like criminals”, says Justice Moraes.[7] On December 14, 2022, he warned “many people still need to be arrested and a lot of fines to be issued”.[8]
Justice Moraes regularly issues “monocratic decisions” against “misinformation”, sending some of the former president’s friends and supporters to jail, confiscating their electronic devices and freezing their bank accounts.[9] He also opened an inquiry against Bolsonaro just because he dared to express his opinion about the well-documented association between the Pfizer vaccine and risks of contracting myocarditis.[10]

...
In one of his academic articles, Barroso excuses his judicial activism by claiming that the Brazilian Supreme Court “enjoys a position of supremacy” over the executive and legislatives branches of government. Such a “supremacy”, according to him, requires “an exercise of political power by the court with all its implications for democratic legitimacy”.[22]

At the heart of Barroso’s interpretative method is the peculiar notion that, in deciding a case, an unelected judge should “improve the law”. As a result of such an idea, writes Brazilian journalist J.R. Guzzo,

The eleven members of the Supreme Court seriously believe that they can do whatever they want. They can release corrupt politicians and drug dealers. They can prohibit the police from entering in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. They can even arrest congressmen and journalists for crimes of opinion. They can also censor the press and force the government to distribute Covid vaccines.[23]
...
Let’s be patently clear: what is happening in Brazil is extremely serious. There is an ongoing suppression of fundamental human rights by an unelected judicial oligarchy, as well as the absolute disregard of separation of powers. Hence, during his talk at the 9th Lisbon Legal Forum in Portugal, on November 16, 2021, Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli candidly confessed that for such unelected judges “presiding over Brazil is not easy”.[25] “We already have a semi-presidentialism with a moderating power control that is currently exercised by the Supreme Court”, Justice Toffoli said.[26]

Of course, the system of government in Brazil is presidential. This supposed “moderating power” by the judiciary is found only in the creative minds of activist judges. It amounts, in practice, to an usurpation of executive (and legislative) power by an unelected judicial oligarchy.

In this context, on February 21, 2021, Justice Gilmar Mendes of the Supreme Court even met the then President of the House of Representatives, Rodrigo Maia, as well as ten other congressmen, to discuss what they should do about President Bolsonaro. Justice Mendes proposed “a harsher attack” on the President and “zero tolerance” towards him.[27]
https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/free-speech/brazils-judicial-attack-on-fre...

All footnotes are referenced and linked.

Augusto Zimmermann is the Foundation Dean and Professor of Law at Alphacrucis University College. He also served as Associate Dean at Murdoch University School of Law and as a Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia.