Fachin Closes Dallagnol Case, but Criticism of Fake News Inquiry Persists

Fachin Closes Dallagnol Case, but Criticism of Fake News Inquiry Persists
Supreme Federal Court President Edson Fachin has shelved a request by Justice Flávio Dino to include former Lava Jato prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol in Brazil’s Fake News Inquiry. The immediate legal consensus behind the decision is clear: the Prosecutor General’s Office said the earlier closure of the underlying complaint remained valid, despite a subsequent change in the court’s rules on jurisdiction.

Dino filed the criminal complaint in 2023, when he was justice minister, after Dallagnol linked Dino’s visit to Rio de Janeiro’s Complexo da Maré to an alleged connection with organized crime. The matter was sent to a federal trial court after Dallagnol lost his congressional seat. In July 2024, the 10th Federal Criminal Court in Brasília closed the complaint, finding no basis to start a criminal case.

The case returned to the Supreme Court after it revised its interpretation of privileged jurisdiction, holding that cases tied to an official’s duties can remain before the court even after that official leaves office. But the Prosecutor General’s Office argued that the new interpretation did not undo a decision validly made under the earlier rules. In the position reproduced by Fachin, prosecutors said there were “no measures to be taken” and called for the case to be archived.

The account from the political right similarly emphasizes that Fachin accepted the prosecutors’ recommendation and that the lower-court decision was confirmed. It adds that Dallagnol’s office said he would not comment for now, casting the outcome primarily as the end of a specific complaint rather than a broader judgment on the inquiry itself.

A sharper reaction came from commentator Rodrigo Constantino, who called the archiving of the Fake News Inquiry “too little, too late.” His response treats the decision not simply as a procedural closure, but as evidence that the wider inquiry should face more fundamental scrutiny. Fachin also lifted secrecy restrictions on the case file.

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