OAB Pushes Back After Dino’s Broad Claim on Judicial Verdict Sales

OAB Pushes Back After Dino’s Broad Claim on Judicial Verdict Sales
Brazil’s Federal Bar Association, the OAB, and its 27 state chapters have rejected a remark by Supreme Federal Court Justice Flávio Dino that they say unfairly implicates lawyers as a profession.

During a court session, Dino said that “there is no sale of a judgment without a lawyer buying it.” The OAB responded that the statement creates a broad suspicion around Brazilian lawyers and that any ethical or criminal misconduct should be identified and punished individually, rather than attributed to an entire profession.

The association stressed that it has disciplinary rules and procedures for investigating members when there is evidence of ethical violations, with rights to adversarial proceedings and a full defence. It said it would not accept what it described as the “criminalization of the legal profession.”

A separate account of the hearing placed Dino’s comment in a wider discussion of alleged corruption in the judiciary. According to that report, the justice argued that any potential wrongdoing should be investigated under due-process safeguards, while the OAB said that generalizations are neither fair nor accurate for the “overwhelming majority” of lawyers who work ethically.

The dispute unfolded during a session examining a Federal Police report concerning contacts between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and former banker Daniel Vorcaro. Outside the OAB’s institutional response, commentator Rodrigo Constantino argued on X that the session had spent its time on procedural questions instead of addressing the merits of the allegations.

The OAB’s position does not dispute the need to investigate wrongdoing in the justice system. Its objection is to Dino’s formulation: where he described lawyers as necessarily involved in any purchase of a ruling, the association says responsibility must rest only with those proven to have acted improperly.

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