Commentary
When the then head of the top electoral court in Brazil, Supreme Court Justice José Dias Toffoli, officially declared Jair Bolsonaro the winner of the 2018 presidential elections, he made this unusual pronouncement: “The future president must respect institutions, must respect democracy, the rule of law, the judiciary branch, the National Congress, and the legislative branch.” Those remarks were taken to be a rebuke of the new president’s conservative views.
However, it is ironic that a major threat to democracy actually comes from a highly politicized judiciary.
To give an example, on Feb. 21, 2021, Justice Gilmar Mendes of the Supreme Court met the then president of the House of Representatives, Rodrigo Maia, and 10 other federal congressmen, to discuss what they should do about the Brazilian president….