The ban follows a long-running battle between Brazil’s supreme court and Elon Musk. It shows the country will no longer tolerate tech giants ignoring the rule of law.
Here in Brazil we have a judge that concentrates the powers of: judge, prosecutor, victim, legislator, chief of Federal Police. And he wasn’t elected by the people. Are we still really a democracy? Are we so different from countries like Russia?
Judges in the STF (supreme court) are not directly elected by the people (because that would be disastrous in real life, people would vote for fun or ‘against the system’ in absurd candidates like reality show and football stars, or people would just not know what makes a good STF judge candidate). BUT they ARE indirectly elected by the people, by the process of: 1. Elected president chooses a list of candidates, three in order of preference. 2. Elected parliament approves the chosen candidate (or vetoes them all, and step 1 is repeated until approval). The institution is democratic, just not direct democracy. If people want 11 fachos in the STF, they can just consistently vote for a majority in parliament and win the presidency, over time they will nominate all the judges they wanted. (and no, that is not comparable to elected politicians because STF judges actually need to have very specialized knowledge intrinsically tied to their function, i.e. uphold the legal order from the constitution and interpret law in general).
It’s also good to remind people that separation of powers in Brazil has THREE powers, not 2 or 1. STF Judges, like the congress and the president, can and should weight in all the political topics if it is inside their sphere of functions (keep the integrity of the constitutional laws and regulations). Like interfering in fraudulent cases, ordering the police around if the police are doing something absurd and the congress and presidency are being neglectful until they stop contradicting the constitution and fundamental rights, ordering prisons to receive maintenance works if the police and congress and administration are neglecting their constitutional duties, etc and etc.
Here in Brazil we have a judge that concentrates the powers of: judge, prosecutor, victim, legislator, chief of Federal Police. And he wasn’t elected by the people. Are we still really a democracy? Are we so different from countries like Russia?
Judges in the STF (supreme court) are not directly elected by the people (because that would be disastrous in real life, people would vote for fun or ‘against the system’ in absurd candidates like reality show and football stars, or people would just not know what makes a good STF judge candidate). BUT they ARE indirectly elected by the people, by the process of: 1. Elected president chooses a list of candidates, three in order of preference. 2. Elected parliament approves the chosen candidate (or vetoes them all, and step 1 is repeated until approval). The institution is democratic, just not direct democracy. If people want 11 fachos in the STF, they can just consistently vote for a majority in parliament and win the presidency, over time they will nominate all the judges they wanted. (and no, that is not comparable to elected politicians because STF judges actually need to have very specialized knowledge intrinsically tied to their function, i.e. uphold the legal order from the constitution and interpret law in general).
It’s also good to remind people that separation of powers in Brazil has THREE powers, not 2 or 1. STF Judges, like the congress and the president, can and should weight in all the political topics if it is inside their sphere of functions (keep the integrity of the constitutional laws and regulations). Like interfering in fraudulent cases, ordering the police around if the police are doing something absurd and the congress and presidency are being neglectful until they stop contradicting the constitution and fundamental rights, ordering prisons to receive maintenance works if the police and congress and administration are neglecting their constitutional duties, etc and etc.