Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux suspended the two-year removal that Brazil's National Council of Justice imposed on Gabriela Hardt, the judge who succeeded Sergio Moro in the Lava Jato case, citing the statute of limitations and a lack of evidence.
BRASILIA — Supreme Court Justice Luiz Fux suspended the two-year removal that Brazil’s National Council of Justice (CNJ) imposed on Judge Gabriela Hardt, who took over the Lava Jato corruption cases after Sergio Moro, according to Gazeta do Povo, Jovem Pan and Folha. The injunction is dated Monday, Nov. 9, and holds until the court finishes judging her appeal.
The CNJ had punished Hardt in August 2026 for approving an agreement between Petrobras and the Lava Jato task force that would have sent about R$1.28 billion to a private foundation for social projects and anti-corruption work. The council ruled that she had breached her duties as a judge. The money stemmed from Petrobras’s settlement with U.S. authorities.
Fux gave three reasons. First, the statute of limitations: the CNJ knew of the conduct in March 2019 but only opened the disciplinary case in June 2024, past the five-year deadline. Second, a lack of evidence: he found nothing showing she took part in the negotiations, gained anything personally or misused her office. Third, a retroactive standard: the council, he wrote, used criteria that appeared only after the Supreme Court annulled the decision, to punish a judicial act. Hardt may return to the bench once her medical leave ends and keeps her salary until the final ruling on her petition. The decision does not close the disciplinary matter for good.
Why it matters
Lava Jato was the largest anti-corruption operation in Brazilian history, built with cooperation from American prosecutors, and its judges have faced punishment and sidelining ever since. The same Supreme Court that annulled the work of the task force is now the one deciding whether a judge who endorsed one of its deals can be removed for it. For American readers, the question is a simple one: when judges who prosecuted the political class are the ones who end up facing discipline, what does that say about how independent the Brazilian judiciary really is? And the fact that a justice had to step in to stop a punishment applied five years late suggests the machinery of discipline is not neutral.
The record
What is documented: the CNJ’s August decision, the content of the agreement, Fux’s injunction and its three grounds, and the dates he cites. What remains disputed: whether the foundation deal was legitimate in the first place. Critics say it put a huge sum under the control of prosecutors. The Supreme Court annulled it. Fux does not rule on that question. He rules that the punishment came too late and without proof of personal wrongdoing.
Under the Lula regime, the pattern is that the judges who pursued the powerful are the ones disciplined, while the powerful return. This ruling reverses one case. It does not change the pattern.
The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: Gazeta do Povo; Jovem Pan; Poder360; Folha de S.Paulo; Estadão.
Featured image: Supreme Court justices at the swearing-in of Nunes Marques as TSE president, May 12, 2026 by TSE – Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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