THE minister Gilmar Mendesof the Federal Supreme Court (STF), said this Monday (22) that he is not against the adoption of a code of conduct for members of the Court, but defends that the issue be discussed internally by ministers.
During a conversation with journalists, Mendes, who is the Dean of the STF, said that he spoke only once with the President of the Court, Edson Fachin, about the code.
“There’s no problem if you want to discuss this in the future. The only thing I notice is that no proposal moves here if it’s not built here”, he stated.
Fachin is defender of a code to regulate the participation of ministers in events sponsored by companies who have cases in the Court and the relationship with lawyers who work at the Supreme Court.
The president would like to adopt the code of conduct of the German Supreme Court, which has rules on the participation of ministers in lectures and events, in addition to establishing measures for acting in private life.
Nonsense
The dean said that he considers the press’ questions about the participation of ministers in private events to be “nonsense”.
“I think this is nonsense. I go to all the events that I can and that invite me. I don’t receive remuneration. I don’t have this concern, which appears in the German code. I don’t think anyone will have inappropriate conversations at events. If there is someone thinking about doing something wrong, they certainly won’t do it at events”, he stated.
Offside
The minister also stressed that the rules for impediment and suspicion of judges are already provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP) and Code of Civil Procedure (CPC).
In Mendes’ understanding, “inventing” impediment rules can open loopholes for defenses to try to change the outcome of trials.
“Nobody is here to resolve a case of their personal interest. We need to have a broader vision. If we keep inventing impediments because of suspicion, in a little while, I will generate provisional majorities. I remove two judges from the group and, with three votes, I do what happens in courts, you hire a relative to cause impediment and the result changes”, he added.
