MADRID, 24 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Supreme Court of Brazil (STF) André Mendonça has suspended this Friday a precautionary order from a court of first instance that prohibited the dissemination of a report critical of the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.
Specifically, it has been STF magistrate André Mendonça, appointed in July 2021 by Bolsonaro himself, who has released a report on real estate transactions by the family of the Brazilian president, as reported by ‘Folha de S.Paulo’.
With this decision, Mendonça has rejected the censorship imposed by Judge Demetrius Gomes Cavalcanti, of the Court of Justice of the Federal District and the Territories (TJDFT), who had determined that the content should no longer be broadcast.
“The democratic rule of law must ensure Brazilians of all political-ideological spectrums the broad exercise of freedom of expression,” Mendonça said in his decision, according to the aforementioned newspaper.
“Thus, the curtailment of this free exercise, in the form of censorship, under any pretext or for very good intentions, especially if such restriction comes from the Judiciary, the ultimate protector of fundamental rights and guarantees, does not find support in the Republican Letter of 1988”, has sentenced the magistrate of the STF.
The published report stated that, since the 1990s, the president, brothers and sons negotiated 107 properties, of which at least 51 were fully or partially purchased with or using cash. The amount spent in this way was, according to the investigation, 13.5 million reais (2.6 million current euros).
This use of cash in suspicious conditions has hit President Bolsonaro once more during his election campaign to run for re-election to the presidency.
In-kind transactions are not a crime, but may be intended to make it more difficult to track amounts from illegal sources.
