Lula Still Imprisoned in a Brazil With Institutional Chaos

Brasilia – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has reached the 94 days in political prison in a Brazil that, according to the national president of the Workers’ Party (PT), Gleisi Hoffmann, is experiencing a real institutional chaos.

We arrive at a situation in which the country has no more legal security; the justice system, totally submitted to (the anti-corruption operation) Lava Jato and to the power of the Globo Network, stopped being guided by the law, by the Constitution and by the hierarchy of the instances, she maintained.

Hoffmann ruled yesterday after Judge Sergio Moro, first; the magistrate of the Regional Court of the Fourth Region (TRF-4) Joao Gebran Neto, then, and the chief justice of that court, Carlos Eduardo Thompson Flores, later, restrained the order of freedom in favor of former President Lula waged by the judge Rogerio Favreto.

He also warned that all these arbitrariness take place before the eyes of the superior courts, which should ensure the rule of law, including the judicial system of the country. ‘But, against Lula, everything is worth, even at the cost of installing this shameful anarchy in the Judiciary,’ he lamented.

The possibility that Lula was released this Sunday was finally dismissed with the decision of the president of TRF-4, Thompson Flores, to send the judicial decrees to Gebran Neto’s cabinet and to maintain the resolution of the latter to revoke the initial order given by Favreto to release the former dignitary immediately.

In a commentary on the events, the columnist for the digital newspaper Brasil 247 Paulo Moreira Leite pointed out that the ‘street fight’ of Moro and Gebran Neto to prevent the release of Lula was ‘a definite move to demoralize Lava Jato,’ transformed into an action of political persecution against the Democratic State of Law.

Mauro Lopes, the editor of the publication itself, wrote for his part that in the end, the powerful parties applied a blow against democracy in Brazil with the decision made by the president of TRF-4, Thompson Flores, whom he defined as ‘a prominent member of the Brazilian slaveholding elite.’

Optimist, Lopes said that the popular forces will start on Monday stronger than on Sunday.

The correlation of forces in the country is changing in favor of the people; he appreciated before pointing out that ‘the awareness that Lula is a political prisoner is expanding.’