Brazil judge blocks former president’s cabinet appointment

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A Brazilian supreme court judge has blocked former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s appointment to cabinet, paving the way for him to face corruption charges in court.

Judge Gilmar Mendes wrote that Lula’s appointment to cabinet was clearly designed to allow him to avoid possible imprisonment by a lower court judge.

“The goal of the falsity is clear: prevent the carrying out of preventative arrest order” against Silva being considered by a lower court, Mendes wrote in his ruling.

“It would be plausible to conclude that the appointment and subsequent swearing-in could constitute fraud of the constitution.”

The former president’s appointment to cabinet on Wednesday sparked widespread protests in Brazil, given that it meant that only the supreme court would have been able to investigate him.

This would have placed Lula beyond the reach of a crusading judge at the helm of Brazil’s largest ever graft investigation into corruption at state oil company Petrobras.

Mendes’ decision puts to an end the legal ping-pong of the past two days that saw Lula win and lose ministerial status several times, as judges across the country filed over 50 injunctions against his cabinet appointment.

Solicitor-general José Eduardo Cardozo said that government would appeal Mendes’ decision to the entire supreme court.

Menders’ ruling to block Lula’s appointment came minutes after the former president rallied tens of thousands of supporters behind his embattled successor Dilma Rousseff. 

In front of a crowd of 95,000 in São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Lula made a conciliatory speech that avoided criticism of his opponents. He said that he had accepted the government position to help Rousseff for the remaining two years of her mandate.

“I want a country without hatred,” he shouted over the crowd’s chants of “there’s not going to be a coup.”

“What we need to do is bring back peace and hope, and to prove that this country is better than anything on earth,” he said.

Earlier in the day, police used water cannons to clear anti-government protesters from the streets in São Paulo in an attempt to avoid confrontation between competing groups of demonstrators.

In the capital of Brasília, a crowd of government supporters and sympathisers marched towards congress, which had held its first session to discuss Rousseff’s impeachment earlier in the day.

The president has 10 sessions in the lower house to present her defence and the decision to hold a session on Friday meant the clock has started on those.

A vote on the president’s fate is expected by mid April.

The case centres on allegations that Rousseff broke budget rules to boost spending as she campaigned for re-election in 2014. Both her and Lula deny any wrongdoing.

Rousseff’s main coalition party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, will convene March 29 to decide whether to cut ties with her government and seek her impeachment.