Brazil's Supreme Court is in a crisis that goes beyond the conduct of any single justice. The problem is institutional. Once members of the court come to be seen as players in the very political fight they are supposed to referee,1 the court starts to lose the one asset its authority depends on: the public's expectation that its rulings follow the law rather than the personal preferences of whoever happens to be deciding.
Political institutions exist precisely so that conflicts do not hinge on the strength, will, or virtue of the person holding a given office. That is not what happened with Justice Alexandre de Moraes. During the 2022 election, Moraes played a decisive role in shielding the vote from Jair Bolsonaro's attacks.
Moraes, a Supreme Court justice since 2017, chaired Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE)2 during the 2022 race, ordering the removal of disinformative content from social media platforms and confronting Bolsonaro's campaign to discredit electronic voting. Bolsonaro was later convicted by the Supreme Court over a coup plot. Moraes has since become the chief villain of the Brazilian far right and the target of US sanctions under the Trump administration.
His actions then mattered. But defending democracy does not grant someone a permanent carte blanche. Once protecting an institution becomes indistinguishable from one individual's conduct, a vulnerability is created that should have been avoided.
That is why the questions surrounding Moraes deserve to be taken seriously. The sheer duration and scope of the so-called "Fake News Inquiry," the extraordinary concentration of power in his hands, and the suspicions of ties to the fraud-laden Banco Master raise legitimate questions about the limits of his role. Evidence warrants an investigation — and it must be pursued.
None of this makes what is happening with Justice André Mendonça any less serious.
A former justice minister (under Jair Bolsonaro) and evangelical preacher, Mendonça was appointed by Bolsonaro in 2021 after the then-president promised a "terribly evangelical" justice. He now oversees cases that could affect the October 2026 presidential election, in which Lula is seeking re-election against Bolsonaro's eldest son.
Given the electoral implications of the investigations under his watch, Mendonça holds a position in which the appearance of impartiality matters almost as much as impartiality itself. A court whose rulings have political effects differs from one whose members act according to the logic of political competition.
The timing of Mendonça's rulings, the selective release of information, and doubts about how figures tied to the Bolsonaro camp have been treated are already reason enough for caution. But the video in which the justice publicly thanks evangelical groups for their prayers, addresses them as "brothers and sisters," and asks for God's blessing on the country adds something else entirely. That is where Mendonça crosses the Rubicon.
The point is not to prove that he made each decision with an electoral goal in mind. Institutions do not rest solely on the private intentions of the people who staff them. They rest on rules, on procedure, and on the public's trust that those in authority are not using their office as an extension of their own preferences.
Once that trust breaks, the damage extends well beyond one justice or one ruling. Once Supreme Court justices are identified as standard-bearers for rival political camps, every decision is read less on its legal merits than through a single question: whose side is he on?
That perception feeds the idea that institutions are inherently partisan, that every investigation is political persecution, and that rules count only when they favor one's own side. This is a core part of the playbook of today's anti-democratic movements.
The Supreme Court needs to do more than issue legally defensible rulings. It needs to preserve its ability to be recognized as an institution distinct from the individuals who temporarily occupy its seats.
If there are sufficient grounds to investigate Moraes and Mendonça, both should face the appropriate institutional mechanisms — and, if necessary to protect the independence of those inquiries, be temporarily removed from their duties. What matters is rebuilding the wall between the Supreme Court's institutional authority and the personal power of the people who sit on it.
FOOTNOTES
1 Brazil's Supreme Court has 11 justices (one is currently vacant), appointed for life until age 75. Unlike the US Supreme Court, it also runs criminal investigations and trials of sitting politicians, placing it at the center of every major political battle of the past decade.
2 Brazil entrusts this function to a permanent judicial body, intended to shield the process from partisan interests. As a result, the same institution that organizes elections also adjudicates disputes arising from them. Each of the country’s 27 states has its own regional electoral court, all of which operate under the national-level Superior Electoral Court (TSE). The TSE has seven titular justices, including three from the Supreme Court (who rotate and serve two-year terms) — one of whom serves as chief electoral justice — and seven alternates.
