RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro is said to have decided to suspend for the time being the transmission to the Senate of the impeachment petition of Justice Luis Roberto Barroso of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), says Brasilia-based Metrópoles newspaper, which is usually well connected with politics in the capital.
Still, advisers to the president suspect that Bolsonaro will keep the motion up his sleeve as a trump card. The idea is to develop it further in response to possible new judicial actions against him or his allies.
Mutual distrust between the Supreme Court and the head of state is at their highest ever levels.
The motion against Barroso has reportedly been ready since Friday (August 20), when Bolsonaro sent the Senate the petition to impeach STF Justice Alexandre de Moraes. However, the president decided to hold back a similar petition against Barroso. Later on Friday, however, he gave an interview in which he said the motion against Barroso could be filed this week.
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UNPRECEDENTED
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had announced on August 14, in an unprecedented move, that he would ask Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against two Supreme Court Justices who have ordered legal action against him, and whom he accuses of violating the Constitution.
The announcement represents a new step in the institutional crisis the country is experiencing due to the confrontation between the head of state and members of the country’s highest court, who claim to be trying to curb abuses.
Bolsonaro’s move came only one day after the Federal Supreme Court (STF) ordered the arrest of Roberto Jefferson, head of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), a prominent hardline supporter of Bolsonaro.