Supreme Court justices are still angry over Lula's national address demanding impartial judges, and they answer that he owes explanations of his own, Veja reports. They point to a former chief of staff and to his son, Lulinha.
BRASILIA — Justices of the Supreme Court are still upset over a national radio and television address in which President Lula said it was time for Brazil’s courts to recover their credibility, and they are arguing among themselves that he has no authority to make that demand, according to the magazine Veja. The address aired on Sunday, Nov. 8. “The work of the judiciary needs judges who are impartial, ethical and free of conflicts of interest and of plans to get rich,” Lula said. Veja quotes one justice with access to the presidential palace, who spoke anonymously: “Making demands like this is complicated, because Lula has his own problems.”
The justices point to episodes in Lula’s own circle. Marco Aurélio Ribeiro, known as Marcola, who was Lula’s chief of staff, was a frequent contact of the lobbyist Roberta Luchsinger and, according to Veja, received a draft waiver of a public bid for cannabidiol medicines and appears as the recipient of R$217,000 in personal expenses and gifts paid by her, which he says was a loan. According to the Federal Police, Luchsinger, Lula’s son Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, and businessman Fernando Bittar ran an informal partnership. Investigators wrote that the group’s work “consisted of lobbying government agents and bodies to defend private interests.”
Why it matters
The two institutions that hold most of Brazil’s power are now trading accusations in public, and each side’s record sits in Federal Police files. The justices have their own exposure: Moraes is described as a frequent interlocutor of banker Daniel Vorcaro, and Kassio Nunes Marques and Dias Toffoli also appear in messages in Federal Police hands. All three deny a relationship with him. For American readers, the quarrel is useful: it shows the Lula regime and the court each pointing, off the record, to what it knows about the other.
An old grievance
The tension predates the speech. Veja recalls that months ago Communications Minister Sidônio Palmeira approached justices to complain that the president’s closeness to the court was costing him votes, a visit the court did not welcome. The magistrates also remind the palace of 2024, when then-Finance Minister Fernando Haddad went to the justices to secure the court’s agreement to reinstate the payroll tax on 17 sectors of the economy. The justices’ point is the contrast: a government that came to the court for help when it needed to now questions the court’s credibility in public.
The record
Confirmed: Lula’s address and its wording, the Federal Police’s description of the Luchsinger group’s activity, and the fact that Moraes, Nunes Marques and Toffoli deny any relationship with Vorcaro. Alleged: the justices’ claim that Lula lacks authority, which comes from anonymous sources, and any wrongdoing by Marcola or Lulinha, who have not been charged in the reports reviewed. Marcola calls the R$217,000 a loan.
Lula asked for a court free of conflicts of interest, and the answer he got is a list of his own. The judiciary that ran and certified the 2022 election millions of Brazilians still dispute is now being lectured about ethics by the man it certified, and neither side has offered those voters an audit. A quarrel in which each side keeps the other’s file is not accountability. It is a standoff.
The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: Veja (two reports, Nov. 2026), Federal Police records cited by Veja.
Featured image: 08.11.2026 – Pronunciamento à Nação by Lula Oficial, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
COMMENTS