Hacker News Reader

Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

> If the Brazilian justice system had any integrity [...] the court would be punished.

Where to begin...

The Brazilian supreme court essentially runs the country monocratically alongside the executive, bypassing the senate and congress.

We had to elect enough opposition senators to form an absolute majority in the senate with the explicit goal of impeaching the supreme court judges for infinitely worse violations than this.

Even after this herculean effort, nothing is guaranteed. The judges are nearly omnipotent and might just find a crime to hang our senators with before 2027. The crime of the day is foreign influence: they accuse our senators of having been financed by Americans.

Integrity has left this country a long time ago.

View on HN

> they accuse our senators of having been financed by Americans.

Oh no, they pointed out things that are happening: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/30/trump-state-...

Nothing new under the sun. Their side was financed by USAID too. If they're going to hang people for that, they need to do it to both parties and themselves.

So you first argued that the courts were using false charges of foreign influence as a political weapon. Now you say that the charges are correct?

Selective enforcement is a pretty good political weapon

> So you first argued that the courts were using false charges of foreign influence

Nowhere did I say the charges were false.

> as a political weapon

It is a political weapon.

Seven minutes after losing the presidential election, an order to seize Flávio Bolsonaro's passports was signed by supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes. He's being investigated for several things, including illegally receiving money from banker Daniel Vorcaro as funding for a film about his father, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. The order caused him to flee the country and seek political asylum in the USA.

The judge himself has dealings with Daniel Vorcaro: he messaged the judge on WhatsApp and asked whether he should leave the country in order to escape arrest. The judge's wife received millions of dollars from the banker as well.

It's all so brazen and transparent that I come off as unhinged when I try to explain it. Reality is unrealistic.

Bolsonaro did flee to avoid prosecution for his crimes, so seizing his passport was evidently the right thing to try.

Even PCO, the most extreme left wing party in Brazil, calls it political persecution. Literal trotskyist communists call what they're doing political persecution.

https://www.estadao.com.br/politica/coluna-do-estadao/flavio...

https://diariodopoder.com.br/uncategorized/pco-diz-que-flavi...

https://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/republica/rui-pimenta-do-pco...

> Moraes's actions have nothing to do with defense of democracy and everything to do with the fact the PL candidate had almost 60 million votes and assembled expressive numbers in congress and in the senate.

> With this, he could impeach certain members of the supreme court.

> So the persecution is because of this, it's a power play.

Only a fool would stick around and accept judgement from some stalinistic kangaroo court that's guilty of the same crimes they accuse him of and worse.

Well that's alright then, others are allegedly doing the same crime, he should be allowed to commit it in actual fact.

Given existing precedents, then yeah, he kind of should.

People accuse Flávio of "rachadinha", a sort of kickback where workers pay their employers part of their salaries as a condition of employment.

After Lula's surprise victory, the media started glazing this Janones guy who set up Lula's Army, an organized social media campaign. Something that the left used to decry as "digital militias", and that the supreme court extensively censored in 2022, by the way.

Anyway, what's this guy guilty of? Rachadinha.

https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/stf-homologa-acord...

> Janones admitiu a “rachadinha” em seu gabinete.

Got caught, confessed, gave back the money plus a fine, made a deal with the prosecution and got it approved by the supreme court. No passport seizure, no federal police, no persecution, nothing. Not even a real punishment of any kind. Still a politician, still in power.

So why should Flávio, or anyone else for that matter, accept this literal "rules for thee but not for me" nonsense? He shouldn't. Nobody should.

Once upon a time, these exact same courts put Lula in jail. The entire thing got thrown out because the judge turned out to be compromised. Lula's party and allies used to decry the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes as a fascist. Now he's the savior of democracy.

https://pt.org.br/damous-alem-de-despreparado-para-o-cargo-m...

https://diariodopoder.com.br/brasil-e-regioes/csa-brasil/vir...

I literally have no idea why you're still defending this. The Brazilian judiciary is the problem. It's full of political, activist, partisan judges who let their friends off the hook and throw the book at their enemies. Maybe you think this is fine because you're among their friends right now. Better hope you're not among their enemies tomorrow.

Don't feed the trolls, please.

Just wanted to make sure nobody got the impression that they weren't making things up!

> We

Talk about yourself, buddy. I do not vote for a bunch of fascists just because some judges are being overreaching and hypocritical in their persecution of people who are as bad or worse than themselves. Specially when these same senators just want to flip which side of this terrible equation gets screwed, instead of going after both. You're just choosing between 2 corrupt sides anyway, and worse, you're choosing the most anti-democratic one.

> Talk about yourself, buddy.

No. We, the Brazilian people, elected these senators.

> I do not vote for a bunch of fascists just because some judges are being overreaching and hypocritical

"Just" because?

These judges were not elected. Not a single Brazilian voted for these judges. Yet they legislate and execute. They have been "overreaching" since 2019, seven years now.

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inqu%C3%A9rito_das_Fake_News

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry_4781

If you're going to accuse people of "fascism", then you should start with these judges and work your way down.

> Specially when these same senators just want to flip which side of this terrible equation gets screwed, instead of going after both.

There is no way for the senators to do that. Senators don't appoint supreme court judges, presidents do.

I do understand your concern, though. Many of my friends cited this as their reason for voting against Bolsonaro. They didn't want him to appoint four judges to the court. I had the exact same concerns about Lula.

It's quite telling though that we're even evaluating candidates based on how many totalitarian judges they will have in their pockets. Can we at least agree on how utterly backwards and wrong this is?

The plan was to impeach the judges and then limit their power by converting the supreme court into a purely constitutional court, just like the US supreme court. That would permanently fix the problem, no matter who wins the elections. People told me that Lula promised to do this and it's technically true, but I seriously doubt he's going to do it. He plans to rule through the court.

“Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.”

Can we keep at least this place clean of this kind of discussion?

Both yours and the other guys side are having this same discussion on every single platform possible. Do you guys really need to do it here?

This thread involves the Brazilian judiciary. The added context helps HN users understand just what kind of courts they're discussing.

They shouldn't expect the courts to have "integrity", and the idea that these people would ever be punished is just comical.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com