A lot of "lawfare" coming out of Brazil these days. It reminds me of an earlier time when Frank Sinatra sang about that huge country in South America and their obsession with coffee: "The politician's daughter Was accused of drinkin' water And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil." Yes, it was more of fun to sing about coffee or maybe do that famous bossa nova that you see in the carnival.
Things are looking a little familiar down in Brazil. Opposition politicians going after the former president, who is planning to run again. It looks familiar, does it not?
Let's check out the story from Maria Anastasia O'Grady:
A Brazilian Supreme Court panel voted 4-1 last week to convict center-right former President Jair Bolsonaro of leading a conspiracy to overthrow the leftist government of President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Mr. Bolsonaro received a sentence of 27 years in prison.
The verdict is a major blow to Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters. But many other Brazilians, while not fans of the former president, had also hoped for a different outcome. They’ve been concerned about the politicized Supreme Court for years. Now the high court has allowed the federal prosecutor to bring the former president to trial in Brasília, skipping lower courts, with the express purpose of locking him up. Rule of law be damned.
The issue is not over as O'Grady explains: "Justice Luiz Fux rendered a 452-page dissent laying out the many violations of due process in the case, including the court’s lack of jurisdiction."
The bad news is that the Supreme Court is totally stacked. Even Brazilians who are not politically active can see that there is something wrong with this kind of justice. As a Sao Paulo friend told me yesterday, this whole thing looks a lot like targeting a man from the other party.
How will Brazilians take this? The country is bitterly divided and a lot of people are not going to believe that justice was done. Up here, we had a more honest Supreme Court that was able to shut down similar lawfare against President Trump. Unfortunately, they don't have that in Brazil. So get ready for a lot of crowds on the streets, and it's not the famous carnival.
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Image: Isac Nóbrega/PR