JUDGE ALEXANDRE DE MORAIS VS CONGRESSMAN DANIEL SILVEIRA

#SupremeCourt (#STF) Judge #AlexandredeMorais issued an arrest warranty against conservative representative #DanielSilveira. Morais is infamously known (among other things) for ordering the arrest of a journalist twice, whose title of 'journalist' was ignored by him in official documents, being called a 'blogger' instead, and who got paralyzed from waist down during prison the second time.

Silveira posted a video where he says, “BE A MAN ONCE IN YOUR LIFE” [...] “YOU [JUDGE #FACHIN], [JUDGE] ALEXANDRE DE MORAIS, [JUDGE] #MARCOAURELIO, [JUDGE] #GILMARMENDES, THE ONE THAT FREES CRIMINALS ALL THE TIME, GIVES HABEAS CORPUS ALL THE TIME, SELLS HABEAS CORPUS, SELLS SENTENCINGS. 'HEY THERE! HE WAS ARRESTED? HERE, SEND HIM TO ME!' YOU DISRESPECT THE INTERNAL RULES; THIS LITTLE SUPREME COURT, WHICH IS NO SUPREME. THE REQUIREMENTS FOR YOU TO BECOME A JUDGE-MINISTER IS IN THE ARTICLE 101 OF THE #CONSTITUTION; BUT YOU ALL ARE EMPTY, INNOCUOUS, RETARDED, THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE. ESPECIALLY YOU, FACHIN. YOU ARE PART OF THE VERY SHIT THAT [THE STF] IS.”

“HERE'S THE THING, FACHIN. EVERYBODY IS FULL OF YOUR SON-OF-B***H'S FACE, THIS VAGABOND'S FACE” [...] “SEVERAL TIMES I VISUALIZED YOU BEING BEATEN UP. NOT ONLY YOU, BUT ALL THIS COURT'S MEMBERS” [...] “WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY? THAT I AM ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE? NO, I JUST IMAGINED, AND ME IMAGINING MYSELF DOING SUCH A THING, YOU KNOW IT'S” [imagining hurting someone in advance, speaking about it, but not doing it] “NOT A CRIME” [because he has an extra constitutional protection when it comes to free speech compared to a regular citizen, where he can only be punish for his speech, it doesn't matter what he says, literally, by the Congress].

“I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO WITH THE GENERALS” [...] “THE LITTLE MEN OF THE GOLDEN BUTTONS [one way leftists sarcastically refer to the military], DO YOU REMEMBER? I KNOW YOU REMEMBER; INSTITUTIONAL ACT N° 5 [#AI5]; YOU WERE A PT MILITANT, FROM A COMMUNIST PARTY, FROM THE COMMUNIST ALLIANCE OF #BRAZIL” [the AI5 was the fifth of seventeen institutional acts written during the military regime that defined the actions taken in order to reorganize the government. The AI number 5 was the most polemic, as it allowed for the dissolve of the Congress and the Senate.]

“I TOTALLY AGREE WITH [THE EX-MINISTER OF EDUCATION] #ABRAHAMWEINTRAUB WHEN HE SAID [during a ministerial meeting] 'IF IT WAS UP TO ME, I'D PUT ALL THESE VAGABONDS IN JAIL.'” [...] “I'M GOING TO GO AFTER YOU. I'M NOT AFRAID OF VAGABONDS, OF DRUG DEALERS, OF MURDERS; I'M GOING TO BE AFRAID OF 11 THAT ARE OF NO USE FOR OUR COUNTRY? NO, I WON'T. I KNOW WHO YOU WALK ALONG, WHAT YOU DO.”

After he was notified of his arrest, he recorded another video while he waited for the arrival of the federal police, in which, in part, he says, “FROM THIS POINT ON, THE LEVEL OF THE GAME IS A LITTLE HIGHER. I'M GOING TO DEDICATE EACH AND EVERY MINUTE OF MY TERM TO SHOW WHO ALEXANDRE DE MORAIS, FACHIN, MARCO AURÉLIO DE MELO, GILMAR MENDES, #TOFFOLI, #LEWANDOWSKI ARE. I'M GOING TO PUT EACH ONE OF YOU IN YOUR PLACE. I DON'T CARE. FOR MY COUNTRY, I'M WILLING TO KILL, TO DIE, TO BE ARRESTED, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO MAKE ME FEAR YOU. IT'S THE CONGRESS WHO WILL DECIDE OVER KEEPING ME ARRESTED. YOU JUST RIPPED UP THE CONSTITUTION ONCE AGAIN. I'M LETTING EVERYONE KNOW SO THAT THEY KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON, SO THAT I CAN SHOW BRAZIL WHO'S ITS ENEMY. OTHER THAN THAT, I'M GOING TO SLEEP IN JAIL, AND LET'S SEE WHAT'S NEXT. LET'S SEE WHO'S WHO. [LET'S SEE IF] IT'S [ABOUT] YOU OR [ABOUT] ME AND THE PEOPLE.

Some hours after his arrest, there was a vote in the STF to know if there was majority support, and all of them voted to keep Daniel Silveira arrested, including the vote of #Bolsonaro's appointee #KassioNunes.

We don't know if Silveira's seemingly unconstitutional arrest has anything to do with prompting this, but Bolsonaro just nominated four names for the #RepublicCouncil, among them, two military, one of them a very solid conservative, General #AugustoHeleno, currently the secretary (minister) of the Department of Institutional Security. The Republic Council is responsible for giving a final opinion on the need for a political intervention, a national defense law, or a martial law, and also for matters related to the balanced relationship of the institutions.

Dozens of big politicians and many celebrities from the left already said and expressed themselves publicly against Bolsonaro in a threatening, disrespectful, and defamatory way innumerous times and neither the STF nor any of its judges ever at least said a word condemning the acts, so Silveira's arrest seems to be one more attempt to input fear into conservatives and to pressure Bolsonaro into losing it and thus give the STF and the Congress a reason to impeach him. Judge-minister Mendes came to the point of saying in a live last year that Bolsonaro was responsible for a genocide when referring to the #pandemic. Absolutely nothing happened to him and none of his colleagues made any comments.

The document containing the order for the arrest says that the video justifies an arrest warranty for a flagrant act, since the video is still circulating. We, the TBB, had a lot of difficulty to find the original video. We could only find clips and read transcripts in order to write this post. Even the channel where it was posted no longer exists. According to the Article 53 of Section V of the Constitution, the STF is responsible for ultimately certifying congresspeople's and senators' election. After that, the STF no longer has power over them. If they are caught committing an unbailable crime, then the most the STF can do is to ask the Congress to act.

The Congress is supposed to receive from the STF the formal accusation within 24 hours so that it can be taken to a vote in order to be decided if the arrest is acceptable. Some are citing the Articles 22 and 23 of the National Security Law, which say that one can be arrested for inciting violence, instability among institutions, or threatening animosity between the people and government institutions, punishable with 1 to 4 years in jail.

In the 2005 edition of Alexandre de Morais' own book 'Constitutional Rights' he quotes the words of another person to illustrate how congresspeople have their speech protected, where it says they can't be arrested for “THOUGHT OR WORD CRIMES, SUCH AS CRIME AGAINST THE HONOR, CRIME INCITEMENT, ORAL DISRESPECT FOR RELIGION, ETC.”

The judge-minister Marco Aurélio stated, referring to the Congress vote, “CONGRESSPEOPLE WILL BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN 2022 IF THEY FREE A RIGHTWING FANATIC AND POPULIST [COLLEAGUE].”

All Daniel Silveira's social media pages were shut down on the day of his arrest.