The president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), minister Cármen Lúcia, presented this Tuesday (10) to the presidents of the regional electoral courts (TREs) ten recommendations that must be followed by electoral judges during the October elections.
The guidelines were presented at a meeting held this afternoon.
The rules should serve as an ethical parameter to discipline the behavior of Electoral Court judges during the election. Last week, the guidelines were announced by the minister during the opening session of the 2026 work.
Among the main rules, electoral judges must disclose the agenda of hearings with parties and lawyers.
Magistrates cannot make statements about the processes that are being processed in the Electoral Court and also are prohibited from participating in events with candidates or their allies.
They also cannot post their political choices on social media.
>> Check the rules:
- Audiences: Ensure the publicity of hearings with parties and lawyers, candidates and political parties, publishing the agendas in advance (whether held inside or outside the institutional environment);
- Manifestations: Maintain a measured stance in public or private interventions and demonstrations, including professional or personal agendas, on topics related to the electoral process, whether or not they are subject to its jurisdiction;
- Events: Avoid attending public or private events that promote socializing with candidates, their representatives or people directly or indirectly interested in the campaign, due to potential conflict of interests;
- Social media: Refrain from demonstrating, in any medium, including digital media and social networks, about personal political choices, so as not to generate doubts regarding the impartiality of judicial decisions;
- Gifts: Not receive offers, gifts or favors that could cast doubt on the impartiality in the exercise of jurisdiction;
- Law firms: Stay away from acts or processes in which law firms of which they are part are representing interests;
- Private activities: Do not undertake commitments to non-judicial activities that jeopardize the fulfillment of functional duties;
- Signs: Avoid any signs favorable or contrary to candidates, political parties or ideologies, under penalty of raising conclusions of favoritism or persecution in trials;
- Disclosure: Ensure that only the competent authority makes judicial and administrative acts public, avoiding misunderstandings or hasty or inadequate disclosures about the electoral process;
- Transparency: Reaffirm transparency as an essential republican principle, guaranteeing wide publicity of Electoral Court acts, in order to guarantee voters the right to safe, fact-based information.
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STF
At the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Cármen Lúcia is rapporteur for the Court’s Code of Ethics.
The proposal to create the code was made by the president of the Court, minister Edson Fachin, last week, after ministers Alexandre de Moraes and Dias Toffoli were publicly criticized over the investigations involving fraud at Banco Master.
Last month, Moraes denied having participated in a meeting with the former president of Banco de Brasília (BRB) Paulo Henrique Costain the first half of 2025, at the home of banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master.
The alleged meeting was reported by Portal Metrópoles and would have occurred in the midst of the process of attempting to purchase Master by BRB. In a press release, Moraes classified the report as “false and a lie”.
Before Master’s liquidation by the Central Bank, the law firm Barci de Moraes, which belongs to the minister’s family, provided services to Vorcaro’s bank.
Toffoli began to be criticized for remaining as the case’s rapporteur after journalistic articles reported that the Federal Police found irregularities in an investment fund linked to Banco Master. The fund purchased a stake in the Tayayá resort, located in Paraná, which was owned by the minister’s family members.
