Two Rationalities of Constitutional Adjudication: Jurisdictional Expansion and Guarantist Restraint in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court’s Coup-Plot Judgment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66502/jfb5mp62Keywords:
Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, fair trial standards, judicial impartiality, militant democracy, original criminal jurisdictionAbstract
This article examines the competing constitutional and procedural rationalities expressed in the opinions of Justices Alexandre de Moraes and Luiz Fux in the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court’s adjudication of the 2022-2023 coup-plot prosecution, from the acceptance of the indictment in Petition No. 12,100/DF to the merits judgment in Criminal Action No. 2668. Adopting a doctrinal and critical-analytical method, the study evaluates each opinion against three parameters: the jurisdictional architecture of Article 102 of the 1988 Constitution, the procedural guarantees of Article 5, and the fair-trial standards of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 8 of the American Convention on Human Rights. The analysis identifies in the rapporteur’s reasoning a pattern of interpretive expansion operating across four dimensions: retention of original jurisdiction after the termination of the defendants’ public offices, aggregation of investigative and adjudicative functions in a single justice, a permissive threshold for evidentiary sufficiency, and an expansive construction of the offences introduced by Law No. 14,197/2021. The dissent, by contrast, rests on a narrower jurisdictional premise anchored in the binding precedent of AP 937, on strict typicity, and on an effective rather than merely formal conception of equality of arms. The article argues that these are not competing readings of the same doctrinal materials but two distinct models of constitutional adjudication, and that the Brazilian case offers a cautionary illustration of the institutional costs of democratic self-defence exercised through criminal jurisdiction.
References
Applegate, Taylor. “Mobile Device Forensic Tools: A Help or a Hindrance to Constitutional Cellphone Searches?” Stanford Law & Policy Review 35 (2024): 284–320.
Arguelhes, Diego Werneck, and Leandro Molhano Ribeiro. “‘The Court, it is I’? Individual Judicial Powers in the Brazilian Supreme Court and Their Implications for Constitutional Theory.” Global Constitutionalism 7, no. 2 (2018): 236–262. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381718000072.
Ayres, Ian, and Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash. “A Bipartisan Approach to Political Prosecutions.” Journal of Legal Analysis 16, no. 1 (2024): 140–177. https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laae006.
Bam, Dmitry. “Making Appearances Matter: Recusal and the Appearance of Bias.” BYU Law Review 2011, no. 4 (2011): 943.
Biedermann, Alex, and Kyriakos N. Kotsoglou. “Digital Evidence Exceptionalism? A Review and Discussion of Conceptual Hurdles in Digital Evidence Transformation.” Forensic Science International: Synergy 2 (2020): 262–274. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2020.08.004.
Bogéa, Daniel, and Lívia Guimarães. “Rotating Chief Justices in a Democracy under Stress: The Brazilian Supremo Tribunal Federal under Bolsonaro.” International Journal of Constitutional Law 23, no. 1 (2025): 263–278. https://doi.org/10.1093/icon/moaf011.
Botero, Sandra, Daniel M. Brinks, and Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos, eds. The Limits of Judicialization: From Progress to Backlash in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009093859.
Brazil. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988 [Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, 1988].
Brazil. Decreto-Lei No. 2.848, de 7 de dezembro de 1940 [Criminal Code].
Brazil. Decreto-Lei No. 3.689, de 3 de outubro de 1941 [Code of Criminal Procedure].
Brazil. Decreto No. 592, de 6 de julho de 1992 [promulgating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights].
Brazil. Decreto No. 678, de 6 de novembro de 1992 [promulgating the American Convention on Human Rights].
Brazil. Lei No. 9.605, de 12 de fevereiro de 1998 [Environmental Crimes Act].
Brazil. Lei No. 12.850, de 2 de agosto de 2013 [defining criminal organisations].
Brazil. Lei No. 13.105, de 16 de março de 2015 [Code of Civil Procedure].
Brazil. Lei No. 14.197, de 1º de setembro de 2021 [offences against the Democratic Rule of Law].
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Regimento Interno do Supremo Tribunal Federal. Brasília, DF.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 396/RO. Rapporteur Justice Cármen Lúcia. Diário da Justiça Eletrônico, Brasília, DF, 28 April 2011.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 606-QO/MG. Rapporteur Justice Luís Roberto Barroso. Diário da Justiça Eletrônico, Brasília, DF, 18 September 2014.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 619/BA, Second Panel. Rapporteur Justice Teori Zavascki. Judgment of 18 November 2014, Brasília, DF.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 937 QO/RJ. Rapporteur Justice Luís Roberto Barroso. Brasília, DF, 2018.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Inquérito 2295. Redactor for the judgment Justice Menezes Direito. Diário da Justiça, Brasília, DF, 5 June 2009.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Petição 12.100/DF (Ação Penal 2668), First Panel. Rapporteur Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Opinion of the Rapporteur. Brasília, DF, 26 March 2025.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 2668/DF, First Panel. Rapporteur Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Judgment of 11 September 2025. Brasília, DF.
Brazil. Supremo Tribunal Federal. Ação Penal 2668/DF. Dissenting Opinion of Justice Luiz Fux. Brasília, DF, September 2025.
Burri, Xavier, Eoghan Casey, Timothy Bollé, and David-Olivier Jaquet-Chiffelle. “Chronological Independently Verifiable Electronic Chain of Custody Ledger Using Blockchain Technology.” Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation 33 (2020): 300976. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsidi.2020.300976.
Carvalhaes, Rafael Bitencourt, and Fernando Gama de Miranda Netto. “Questioning Our Faith in the Judiciary: From Institutional Entrenchment to the Monopoly of Constitution.” Revista de Investigações Constitucionais 9, no. 2 (2022): 347–370. https://doi.org/10.5380/rinc.v9i2.86725.
Castillo Ortiz, Pablo, and Yaniv Roznai. “The Democratic Self-Defence of Constitutional Courts.” ICL Journal 18, no. 1 (2024): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1515/icl-2024-0001.
Chen, Brian. “Big Data and Brady Disclosures.” New York University Law Review 99, no. 5 (2024): 1754.
Chlevickaitė, Gabrielė. “Towards a Model of (Insider) Witness Assessments in International Crime Cases: An Experimental Vignette Study.” International Criminal Justice Review 34, no. 1 (2024): 43–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/10575677221126903.
Chlevickaitė, Gabrielė, Barbora Holá, and Catrien Bijleveld. “Judicial Witness Assessments at the ICTY, ICTR and ICC: Is There ‘Standard Practice’ in International Criminal Justice?” Journal of International Criminal Justice 18, no. 1 (2020): 185–210. https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqaa002.
Coelho, Carolina Reis Jatobá. “Foro por prerrogativa de função: comentários à questão de ordem na Ação Penal 937 pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal (AP 937 QO/RJ).” Revista de Direito Administrativo e Infraestrutura 2, no. 6 (2018): 225–239. https://doi.org/10.48143/rdai/06.crjc.
Costa Ramos, Vânia. “The EPPO and the Equality of Arms between the Prosecutor and the Defence.” New Journal of European Criminal Law 14, no. 1 (2023): 43–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/20322844231157078.
Covey, Russell D. “Manufacturing False Convictions: Lies and the Corrupt Use of Jailhouse Informants.” University of Colorado Law Review 96, no. 1 (2025): 131.
Daly, Tom Gerald. “Capturing the Complexity of Constitutional Erosion and Resilience in Brazil.” Suprema – Revista de Estudos Constitucionais 2, no. 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.53798/suprema.2022.v2.n1.a162.
Da Ros, Luciano, and Manoel Gehrke. “Convicting Politicians for Corruption: The Politics of Criminal Accountability.” Government and Opposition 59, no. 3 (2024): 951–975. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2023.48.
Da Ros, Luciano, and Manoel Gehrke. “How to Bring Authoritarians to Justice.” Journal of Democracy 37, no. 1 (2026): 15–31.
Da Ros, Luciano, and Matthew M. Taylor. Brazilian Politics on Trial: Corruption and Reform under Democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2022.
de Arcos Tejerizo, María. “Digital Evidence and Fair Trial Rights at the International Criminal Court.” Leiden Journal of International Law 36, no. 3 (2023): 749–769. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156523000031.
de Sá-Kaye, Théo G. “Examining the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court’s Expanded Powers in the Bolsonaro Era: A Win for Democracy or a Turn Toward Autocracy?” University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 56, no. 2 (2025): 320–362.
Engelmann, Fabiano. “The ‘Fight against Corruption’ in Brazil from the 2000s: A Political Crusade through Judicial Activism.” Journal of Law and Society 47, no. S1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12249.
Grangeia, Mario Luis, and Joris Alberdingk Thijm. “In the Name of Integrity? Anticorruption Discourse of Brazilian Operation Lava Jato.” Latin American Research Review 60, no. 2 (2025): 235–255. https://doi.org/10.1017/lar.2024.61.
Husa, Jaakko. “Judicial Impartiality, Decorative Comparative Law and the Human Rights Court: ECtHR, Alexandru Marian Iancu v. Romania, Application No. 60858/15.” Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 27, no. 3 (2020): 387–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X20943125.
Ismail, Isa, and Khairul Akram Zainol Ariffin. “The Admissibility of Digital Evidence from Open-Source Forensic Tools: Development of a Framework for Legal Acceptance.” PLOS ONE 20, no. 9 (2025): e0331683. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0331683.
Issacharoff, Samuel. “Judicial Review in Troubled Times: Stabilizing Democracy in a Second-Best World.” North Carolina Law Review 98, no. 1 (2019): 1–56.
Keck, Thomas M. “The U.S. Supreme Court and Democratic Backsliding.” Law & Policy 46, no. 2 (2024): 197–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12237.
Kouroutakis, Antonios. “Against Militant Democracy.” German Law Journal 26, no. 6 (2025): 979–997. https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2025.10164.
Landau, David, and Rosalind Dixon. “Abusive Judicial Review: Courts Against Democracy.” UC Davis Law Review 53 (2020): 1313–1383.
Leite, Glauco Salomão. “Passiveness, Activism and Constitutional Bullying: The Supreme Federal Court and Brazil’s Fragile Rule of Law.” ICL Journal 17, no. 3 (2023): 233–250. https://doi.org/10.1515/icl-2023-0041.
Levinson, Daryl J., and Richard H. Pildes. “Separation of Parties, Not Powers.” Harvard Law Review 119 (2006): 2311.
Machado, Luís Henrique. “Fairness to Informants and Cooperators vs. Public Interest Protection: A Comparative Analysis of Legal Frameworks in the United States and Brazil.” Boston University International Law Journal 44, no. 1 (2026): 93.
Medina Quiroga, Cecilia, and Valeska David Contreras. “Right to Due Process.” In The American Convention on Human Rights: Crucial Rights and Their Theory and Practice, 2nd ed., 309–426. Cambridge: Intersentia, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781839702945.009.
Melo, Marcus André, and Carlos Pereira. “Why Didn’t Brazilian Democracy Die?” Latin American Politics and Society 66, no. 4 (2024): 133–152. https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2024.4.
Mészáros, George. “Caught in an Authoritarian Trap of Its Own Making? Brazil’s ‘Lava Jato’ Anti-Corruption Investigation and the Politics of Prosecutorial Overreach.” Journal of Law and Society 47, no. S1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12245.
Meyer, Emilio Peluso Neder. Constitutional Erosion in Brazil: Progresses and Failures of a Constitutional Project. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2021.
Meyer, Emilio Peluso Neder. “Judges and Courts Destabilizing Constitutionalism: The Brazilian Judiciary Branch’s Political and Authoritarian Character.” German Law Journal 19, no. 4 (2018): 727–768. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2071832200022860.
Molbæk-Steensig, Helga, and Alexandre Quemy. “Judicial Independence and Impartiality: Tenure Changes at the European Court of Human Rights.” European Journal of International Law 34, no. 3 (2023): 581–614. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chad036.
Oliveira, Fabiana Luci de. “Between Reform and Attack: Court-Curbing and Delegitimizing Pressures against Brazil’s Supreme Court.” Oñati Socio-Legal Series 16, no. 4 (2026): 1766–1795. https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2524.
Oliveira, Gustavo Justino de, and Eduardo de Carvalho Rêgo. “Democracia defensiva no Supremo Tribunal Federal: o inquérito das fake news como estímulo para a construção de uma jurisprudência constitucional em defesa da democracia.” Revista Digital de Direito Administrativo 10, no. 1 (2023): 318–335. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2319-0558.v10i1p318-335.
Organization of American States. American Convention on Human Rights. San José, 22 November 1969.
Prado, Mariana Mota, and Marta R. de Assis Machado. “Using Criminal Law to Fight Corruption: The Potential, Risks, and Limitations of Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato).” American Journal of Comparative Law 69, no. 4 (2021): 834–879. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac008.
Ramos, Elival da Silva. “Brazil’s Democracy under Siege: January 8th and the Threat of a New Military Dictatorship.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 24, no. 1 (2023): 65–71. https://doi.org/10.1353/gia.2023.a897702.
Rosevear, Evan, Ivar A. Hartmann, and Diego Werneck Arguelhes. “Dissenting Votes on the Brazilian Supreme Court.” Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis 1, no. 2 (2024): 291–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/2755323X241296364.
Szwed, Marcin. “Fixing the Problem of Unlawfully Appointed Judges in Poland in the Light of the ECHR.” Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 15 (2023): 353–384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40803-023-00191-3.
Taylor, Paul M. “Article 14: Fair Trial Rights.” In A Commentary on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: The UN Human Rights Committee’s Monitoring of ICCPR Rights, 369–428. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108689458.017.
Tsuvina, Tetiana. “Judicial Impartiality in Civil Proceedings: Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights and Selected Cases of the Supreme Court.” Problems of Legality, no. 160 (2023): 45–65. https://doi.org/10.21564/2414-990X.160.273808.
Turner, Jenia I. “Managing Digital Discovery in Criminal Cases.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 109, no. 2 (2019): 237.
Turner, Jenia I., Ronald F. Wright, and Michael Braun. “Neglected Discovery.” Duke Law Journal 73, no. 6 (2024): 1173–1228.
United Nations. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New York, 16 December 1966.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 SANDER FERREIRA MARTINELLI (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
