Gilmar Mendes urges pause in Master case as court weighs who can sit in judgment

Gilmar Mendes urges pause in Master case as court weighs who can sit in judgment
Gilmar Mendes has proposed putting Supreme Court proceedings connected to Banco Master on hold until the court establishes which justices are eligible to take part. His central argument is procedural: the court should first identify magistrates mentioned in the investigations and assess whether any relationship creates grounds for recusal or disqualification.

In Mendes’s formulation, moving ahead now would mean “deciding before knowing who decides.” He has stressed that a reference to a judge in third-party messages does not by itself demonstrate wrongdoing, but says the court still needs clarity about possible impediments before it rules on related matters.

The proposal would combine the proceeding concerning Federal Police material that mentions Justice Alexandre de Moraes with a separate case opened to address the broader Supreme Court dispute. Mendes has also suggested a fresh random assignment of a rapporteur and an opportunity for any cited magistrates to respond before the case resumes.

His criticism of Justice André Mendonça goes further than the recusal question. Mendes accused Mendonça of acting with an “unequivocal political-electoral bias,” arguing that the release of previously confidential material before full-court consideration risked placing public pressure on the justices. Mendonça’s actions, in Mendes’s view, sought to “play with chaos”; the account does not set out a response from Mendonça.

Mendes has pointed to references involving Justice Kassio Nunes Marques and people connected to him as reasons for clarification, not as proof of misconduct. That distinction is central to his request: he says the court should determine who may vote, rather than open a new inquiry into every person named.

Outside the court, the dispute has drawn overtly political reactions. Commentator Rodrigo Constantino wrote that Flávio Dino was “converting even the vote of a centrist tucano,” reflecting how critics have cast the institutional confrontation in electoral terms.

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