By ALESSANDRO DA SILVA*
“Lava Jato” is the result of the tendency towards politicization that characterizes law on the periphery of capitalism and the reformism of the PT government
Introduction
The announcement of Deltan Dallagnol’s departure from the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) was followed by reactions that, in short, pointed to this decision as proof of the instrumentalization of “Operação Lava Jato” for party-political purposes[I]. He would just have taken off the mask and started to dedicate himself to politics explicitly[ii], although he already did so when he was on the task force, in the same vein as Sérgio Moro.
As far as the most obvious phenomena are concerned, this finding is correct. However, by contenting ourselves with a superficial analysis, we run the risk of taking appearance for the essence.[iii] when we imagine that the political project that was behind the “Lava Jato” – with all the developments that range from the removal of Dilma Rousseff from the Presidency of the Republic to the election of Jair Bolsonaro – was the work of a group of voluntary prosecutors, headed by upstart judge. An anomaly of the justice system[iv], whose correction would have started with the annulment of the convictions imposed on former President Lula and consolidated with the departure of Moro from the Judiciary and Dallagnol from the MPF. Once the deviation from the route has been corrected, the justice system would again be able to fulfill its institutional mission in a technical and impartial manner.
Well then, what we intend to demonstrate in this article is that the tendency to politicization[v] it is an immanent feature of the Brazilian justice system, so that “Lava Jato” is a result of this trend and not its cause. To do so, initially, the structural factors of such politicization will be presented, embedded in the structure and dynamics of law in dependent social formations, which determine the functioning of the legal instance in the periphery of capitalism.
Then, the historical mediation will begin, in which the reformist policies of the Workers' Party government for the justice system will be exposed, which led to the material increase and political strengthening of these institutions and which constitute the circumstantial factors of their politicization. At that moment, it will be possible to see how these policies reaffirmed the incidence of dependency laws on the law, in particular the tendency to advance determinations of a political nature over those of a technical nature.
In order to confirm these findings, the main events of “Operação Lava Jato” will be recalled, in order to reveal the degree of political power achieved by the justice system and its role in the events that resulted in the current political situation.
In the end, once the structural and conjuncture causes that allowed the advent, consolidation and decline of an operation like the “Lava Jato” have been identified, it will be possible to draw some lessons for the tactical planning of the political action of the subaltern classes in the search for the strategic horizon of emancipation or, at the very least, to resist more effectively the social setbacks that follow institutional ruptures.
Structural factors: the legal form in dependent capitalism
According to the theory of legal form[vi], law is a typical social form of capitalism[vii] that develops as a reflection of exchange relations. As commodities, by themselves, do not establish relationships with each other, the existence of an exchange system among men is necessary to allow that product that has no use value for its owner, to be exchanged for an equivalent together with another individual and thus realize their exchange value. There can only be a general sphere of mercantile exchanges from the moment in which the owners of commodities mutually recognize each other as such, which is provided by the legal form, through the figure of the subject of law.
The universalization of mercantile circulation only became complete with the commodification of the workforce, which also led to the universalization of the legal subject figure, so that individuals expropriated from ownership of the means of production could present themselves on the market as owners of themselves as a workforce.
The consolidation of social relations guided by this new paradigm demanded that the adoption of the behavior of reiterating mercantile practices become voluntary, since it would not be possible to impose its observation on each citizen. In this attempt, the guarantee of formal equality to the subjects of law was an essential factor, as it allowed the reciprocal and momentary recognition, only for the act of exchange, between the owners of goods based on the commensurability provided by the equivalence[viii]. Participation in this process appears as a result of free will, not subject to any type of explicit coercion or violence, since each one gives up his merchandise and obtains the other's merchandise only through the interlocutor's consent.
In case of resistance, the desired behavior cannot be imposed by the market itself, under penalty of revealing class domination, when the need arises to deal with deviant conduct from normality standards, a function attributed to the State, as a third party that , supposedly, puts itself above the interests in dispute.
In this way, the capitalist bonds formed in the circuit of exchanges are only possible through the coordinated action of the value form, which enables the commensurability of goods, the legal form, which constitutes individuals as subjects of law and allows participation and reciprocal recognition in the market. , and the political form, which acts as a third party in relation to economic agents, in charge of ensuring compliance with contractual obligations and appropriation of value by the subject, that is, private property[ix].
After all, the development of social relations of this nature raised equivalence to a constitutive element of social relations in legal relations. These legal relations are operationalized through legal dogmatics, which constitutes a technical practice aimed at establishing impersonality and predictability in economic relations[X], as well as to standardize the treatment received by the owners of goods that meet for the exchange, without the need for prior personal recognition. Thus, it is the technique that must prevent arbitrariness, partiality and factionalism in the application of the law, which requires the disregard of values, convictions and even history in favor of an integrally idealist dogmatic.
Furthermore, as the law of value is at the core of capitalist sociability, equivalence is also a parameter for assessing justice in social relations.[xi]. The consolidation of bourgeois society inaugurated a historical era of permanent transformations, which radically altered the way of life adopted in pre-capitalist social formations, which was founded on the stability provided by tradition and religion. The catastrophes produced from the awakening of titanic productive forces and the iniquities resulting from the very tendential laws of capitalism led to the deterioration of the sociability references in force until then. It was up to equivalence to take the place of these references, which allowed the construction of a new sociability, whose conception of justice comes directly from the balance in mercantile exchanges.
From all of the above, it is possible to conclude that in the process of constitution, structuring and development of the legal form, equivalence acts as (i) a constitutive element of the legal relationship, which allows distinguishing the legal from the political; (ii) criterion of technical binding, intended to provide predictability and security in commercial exchanges; and (iii) fairness parameter, derived directly from the balance of commercial transactions.
Once the law has been presented in its fundamental determinations in the capitalist mode of production, it is time to reduce the level of abstraction in order to understand which determinations characterize the historical and social reality of Latin America, to then point out which elements of these social formations that interfere in the way in which the legal form manifests itself in them. In this attempt, the Marxist theory of dependency was adopted.[xii] which, based on the precise use of the historical-dialectical materialist method, considered the interference of internal and external factors in the structuring and dynamics of social formations in peripheral countries, which allowed the apprehension of the tendential laws that act in dependent capitalism.
Although inserted in the dynamics of world capitalism, and in this condition subject to its tendential laws, dependent countries are constituted from specific manifestations of these tendential laws. Therefore, dependence does not characterize another mode of production, but a particular way in which capitalism develops in these countries, which engenders “a relationship of subordination between formally independent nations, within which the production relations of subordinated nations are modified or recreated to ensure the extended reproduction of the dependency”[xiii].
The determinations of dependency are located at the intersection of relations between the world economy and particular social formations, which generates specific forms and trends that the capitalist mode of production assumes in the objective reality of peripheral countries[xiv]. It is not, therefore, an approach that privileges the external element to the detriment of the internal characteristics of dependent social formations, but that considers the dialectical relationship between these two levels, which will result in specific tendential laws. In short, “[…] the historical development of capitalist production relations and the movement of its laws of tendency gave life to historico-social phenomena that, based on historical repetition, became regularities,[…], engendering laws specific trends”[xv].
Dependency theory was dedicated precisely to investigating and revealing which are these specific tendential laws that determine the dependent condition of peripheral countries in capitalism[xvi] and pointed them out precisely: the transfer of value as an unequal exchange[xvii], the overexploitation of the workforce, the central category of dependency, and the split in the capital cycle (or the divorce between the productive structure and the needs of the masses)[xviii].
As for overexploitation, Marx demonstrated in Book III of The capital that the mechanisms for increasing the rate of surplus value, such as wage reduction and increasing the length and intensity of the working day, are common to all manifestations of the capitalist mode of production, including in central countries[xx]. It so happens that the bourgeoisie of the peripheral countries uses these mechanisms as a response to the transfer of value to the central countries, since, as a rule, it remunerates the workforce at a price below its value, which makes overexploitation a structural tendency of dependent capitalism. , not merely circumstantial of an evanescent character. This tendential law entails a particular development of the mode of production, “[…] founded exclusively on the greater exploitation of the worker, and not on the development of his productive capacity”[xx].
The deepening of capitalist development in this context means the consolidation of these specific tendential laws and the consequent exacerbation of the contradictions inherent to capitalism, since the overexploitation of the workforce produces a regressive distribution of income and wealth, as well as intensifies the social ills of accumulation capitalist[xxx]. This peculiar form of manifestation of capitalism engenders social, political and legal relations that mirror and reproduce the particular tendential laws of dependence.
If law is a legal form, at the core of which is equivalence, how does the development of the legal instance take place in a social formation that is characterized precisely by the repeated violation of equivalence embodied in the overexploitation of the workforce?
From the outset, it is necessary to assert that the law of dependent countries is also a legal form and, as such, finds its theoretical foundation and its apparent function in the commitment to guarantee equivalence in the relations between the owners of goods, including the labor force commodity.
The legal form is a means of expressing a content, which are capitalist mercantile relations which, in turn, are structured on the law of value. It so happens that social relations in dependent capitalism are marked by the overexploitation of the workforce and, consequently, by the repeated violation of the law of value, a structural character of these social formations. In this environment, a legal instance was developed sui generis, marked by a tension between the legal form (equivalence) and the content of legal relations (overexploitation), which has decisive effects on its functioning dynamics.
As equivalence is at the heart of law, to the point of characterizing the constitutive element of social relations in legal relations, but is repeatedly violated in dependent capitalism, in these social formations the legal form is incapable of guaranteeing formal equality between subjects of law[xxiii], so that its legal instance has a low degree of autonomy in the face of politics and, as such, is extremely susceptible to interventions based on the mere exercise of power.
The state apparatus replaces the impersonality and predictability resulting from the application of legal dogmatics by the arbitrariness that allows it to protect personal, parochial and class interests. In this sense, there are empirical studies that, after analyzing thousands of judicial decisions, found “a frank and consistent favoring of the stronger party”[xxiii], as well as that “a party with economic or political power has between 34% and 41% more chances that a contract that is favorable to it will be maintained than a party without power”[xxv].
Finally, the legal instance of dependent capitalism is also not committed to justice, as it is built on super-exploitation relations and all the resulting social deterioration. If inequalities are inherent to the development of the tendential laws of capitalism, in dependent countries these contradictions are taken to the extreme, so that barbarism is trivialized in the daily life of social relations. Even when complex and structured institutional apparatuses are erected aimed at implementing the legal framework, their impacts are barely palpable in the daily lives of the population in terms of what this could mean in raising the level of citizenship. On the other hand, the use of the State's repressive apparatus to maintain the framework of social inequality is legitimized by the arbitrary instrumentalization of legal dogmatics.
From all of the above, it is possible to verify that, as it expresses social relations that are not fully determined by equivalence, the legal instance that developed in dependent social formations does not guarantee formal equality between the subjects of law and, therefore, has a low degree of of autonomy in the face of the political instance. Technique is, to a large extent, supplanted by arbitrariness, in the desire to meet personal, parochial and class interests. The parameters of justice are built from the naturalization and legitimation of social relations marked by barbarism[xxiv].
Conjunctural factors: the reformism of the PT government
Much has already been said about the transition that the Workers' Party (PT) has gone through since the 1970s, when it was founded and had the construction of socialism on the horizon.[xxv], until the moment when he managed to come to power with the election of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva as President of the Republic, in 2002, in which he had already adhered to the conciliation of classes[xxviii] and showed a firm commitment to liberal-biased reformist policies[xxviii].
From the political-institutional point of view, this reformism manifested itself in the belief that it would be possible to consolidate democracy in our country from the improvement of institutions, in terms of the liberal model adopted in central countries. In this sense, one of the main bets was the strengthening of the justice system[xxix], which resulted in a series of measures that, among others, involved a profound reform of the Judiciary, carried out by Constitutional Amendment 45/2004[xxx], and the accentuation of judicial control over public management and the electoral process, which required a significant increase in the material structure of the institutions that are part of the system, especially the Public Ministry and the Judiciary itself.
It is known that the reform of the Judiciary carried out in 2004 was, to a large extent, inspired by a report by the World Bank, prepared in 1996, in which that institution defended that:
Given the current state of crisis of the judiciary in Latin America, the objectives and benefits of the reform can be broadly grouped into two overarching frameworks: strengthening and reinforcing democracy and promoting economic development. The reform of the Judiciary is necessary for the democratic functioning of society, being part of a process of redefinition of the state in its relations with society. Furthermore, economic development cannot proceed without an effective definition, interpretation and guarantee of property rights. More specifically, judicial reform targets increasing efficiency and equity in conflict resolution, expanding access to justice, and promoting private sector development.[xxxii]
This document was the target of criticism for suggesting the breaking of the Judiciary’s monopoly on jurisdictional provision and the reinforcement of guarantees to the right of property, as well as for being concerned only with promoting “economic development and the private sector, weakening the institutional expression of the Power Judiciary and making it less operative in guaranteeing rights and freedoms, as long as the needs of capital, especially international capital, are at stake”[xxxi].
In any case, the reform was approved and implemented several changes in the structure and organization of the justice system, with emphasis on: (1) the creation of external control bodies of the Judiciary and the Public Ministry, with administrative and correctional functions; (2) the adoption of a binding precedent, among other measures to concentrate powers and centralize power at the top of the Judiciary; (3) changes in the scope of specialized courts, such as the extinction of class representation and the increase in the jurisdiction of the Labor Court.
Another front of these reforms turned to the accentuation of measures of judicial control over public management. This tendency had already manifested itself since the 1988 Constitution and was consolidated with the Law of Administrative Improbity (Law 8.429/1992) and the Law of Fiscal Responsibility (Complementary Law 101/2000). In government, the PT made the mea culpa for having voted against the Fiscal Responsibility Law[xxxii] and bet on expanding the punitive scope of these norms that would later be used to provide a legal basis for the impeachment
The apex of this process occurred with the approval of the Clean Record Law (Complementary Law 135/2010), which created new cases of ineligibility for a series of conducts ranging from administrative impropriety, dismissal from public service, abuse of economic power or political, rejection of accounts relating to the exercise of public offices or functions, up to conviction for crimes, in a final decision or issued by a collegiate judicial body. It is true that this norm was the result of a social mobilization that collected around 1,6 million signatures for the popular initiative bill and was unanimously approved in both houses of the National Congress. In any case, the law is characterized by increased control of the justice system over the electoral process, in a movement that transfers to the courts the decision on political issues that were previously the object of popular sovereignty.
This increase in attributions motivated the continuous expansion of the material structure of the institutions that make up the justice system, both within the Union and in the states, with emphasis on the creation of new branches, increase in vacancies in courts[xxxv], addition of attorneys' offices in the Public Prosecutor's Office, implementation of Public Defender's Offices and increase in Public Advocacy (state attorneys, federal attorneys, finance attorneys and public attorneys).
The increase in this budget was such that, in 2014, our justice system already committed 1,8% of GDP, expenditures that were significantly higher than those adopted by other countries, to the point that “the total expenditure of European countries on the Judiciary , Public Ministry and legal aid be much lower than that of Brazil, with an average of 0,33% of GDP for the continent, with countries such as Portugal (0,37%), Germany (0,35%), England (0,32%), Italy (0,3. .0,2%) and France (XNUMX%) […]”[xxxiv]. If focusing only on the Judiciary and still taking into account the year 2014, expenditure reached 1,3% of GDP, a much higher percentage than that spent by Spain (0,12%), Argentina (0,13%), United States (0,14%), Italy (0,19%), Colombia (0,21%), Chile (0,22%) and Portugal (0,28%).
In addition to the material aspect, the strengthening of the justice system took place above all from the political-institutional point of view, since a hitherto unprecedented level of respect for institutional guarantees was reached.[xxxiv] and functional[xxxviii] which aim to ensure the independence of the Judiciary, as well as the guarantees and prerogatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Advocacy. It is true that this effort was also aimed at improving access to justice and, in the end, promoting citizenship based on formal equality, following the model of central countries. To some extent, this objective was being achieved, especially with regard to individual rights and guarantees.[xxxviii], collective rights[xxxix] and labor rights[xl].
In this context, there were clear signs of institutional maturation in Brazil and it seemed that, finally, the country would go through a transition phase towards the consolidation of the democratic regime.
This optimistic forecast ignored that the tendential laws that determine the reproduction of dependency prevent the deepening of reformist initiatives, because, as Ruy Mauro Marini sentenced, “reformism, by the very fact of shaking bourgeois society to its foundations without daring to destroy it, there, ends up becoming the antechamber of the counterrevolution”[xi].
Although the depth of the reformist actions applied by the PT government in Brazil cannot be compared to the experience of the Popular Unity government in Chile in the early 1970s[xliii], a country that was the object of Marini's studies, the fact is that in dependent countries counterrevolutionary action is permanent. In this sense, throughout our history, what varies is just the degree of authoritarianism, according to conjunctural issues[xiii].
With regard to law, as seen in the previous topic, in dependent capitalism, the legal form has a different dynamic from that presented in countries established in the center of the capitalist system. The repeated violation of equivalence, perpetrated by the overexploitation of the workforce, produces a legal instance that is very subject to interference of a political nature, which requires the replacement of dogmatics by arbitrariness and the trivialization of barbarism to the detriment of the construction of more just social relations, albeit within capitalist parameters. Hence the low degree of spontaneous adoption of prescriptions that are intended to give autonomy to economic relations and, therefore, the effectiveness of the law, a characteristic repeatedly pointed out as striking in dependent countries[xiv]. Here, more than by law (subject of law), the individual becomes a subject by power.
Contrary to what a reformist observer could imagine, this is not a misrepresentation or malfunction of the system, resulting from institutional immaturity, insufficient technical knowledge of legal operators or the impoverishment of imported dogmatics, but the constitution of a legal instance adjusted to the social, economic and political structure of the country:
The heightening of social conflicts in dependent capitalism and overexploitation have consequences on the rule of law and the weight of the law, which are undermined and applied discretionally. Unwritten laws have a significant weight in social life. State institutions, in turn, show fragility, not because of immaturity, but because of the particularity presented by the imbrication of the economic with the political.[xlv]
Inserted in a social formation subject to these determinations, by being strengthened both from a material and political-institutional point of view, the justice system accumulated such a level of power that it allowed its members to envision the possibility of presenting their worldview as a supposedly unblemished alternative to a corrupted and worn-out party-political system. The initial effort undertaken to fight corruption and, consequently, maintain the rules of the game of the capitalist system, gave way to the explicit instrumentalization of the system, especially in the criminal area, to neutralize political opponents.
The self-titled “Lava Jato” operation was the most effective initiative, but not the only one, in this regard.
“Operation Lava Jato”
The trajectory of the “Lava Jato” operation has already been the subject of books[xlv], articles[xlv] and reports, including international press vehicles[xlviii] and is therefore quite well known to the general public. In any case, it is worth remembering some of the most relevant events[xlix] in order to allow a more precise contextualization of the historical mediation undertaken here.
Launched in March 2014, “Lava Jato” was a vast operation that promised to finally end the corruption that historically bled the country's public finances. From the beginning, it was clear that the actions were coordinated, if not led, by the then Federal Judge Sérgio Moro, with the participation of a team of Public Prosecutors, specially designated for such action, and the Federal Police. In seven years of operation, 1.450 arrest warrants were issued, 533 complaints were filed and 174 people were convicted and the colossal sum of 4,3 billion reais was recovered from the country's public coffers.
The operation also had international consequences, to the point that 12 Brazilian, Peruvian, Salvadoran and Panamanian heads or former heads of state were implicated, with emphasis on former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The genesis of “Lava Jato” goes back to the political expansion of the influence of the United States in judicial matters, launched after the September 11 attacks, whose formal objective was to combat corruption and money laundering, as a means of preventing new terrorist actions. . Sérgio Moro, who in 2004 wrote an article[l] on the methodology of Operation Mãos Limpas in Italy, which deals with accusations, leaks and destruction of public image, then he worked on the Banestado case and maintained close collaboration with US authorities, as a result of which he was invited to participate in a relationship program financed by the Department of State of that country. He accepted and in 2007 made a trip to the United States, during which he made a series of contacts within the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Department of State.[li].
Then, the US Embassy created the position of legal advisor, with the aim of structuring a network aligned with its guidelines in the Brazilian legal environment, to which Karine Moreno-Taxman was appointed, attorney specializing in combating money laundering and to terrorism. Starting in 2008, she developed a program called “Projeto Pontes”[liiii], whose objectives were to support the needs of the Brazilian judicial authorities, to organize training courses that would allow them to learn about US working methods, their legal doctrine (the award-winning plea bargains, in particular), as well as their intention to share information in a “ informal”, that is, outside the bilateral judicial cooperation treaties.
Sérgio Moro began to participate, as a speaker, in seminars and meetings with judges, prosecutors, police officers and senior specialized officials, on operational aspects of combating corruption and money laundering. In a short time, the US Embassy in Brasilia formed a network of these professionals convinced of the relevance of using American techniques.
In November 2009, during the IV National Congress of Federal Police Delegates, held in Fortaleza[iii]Mrs. Moreno-Taxman stated that, in the fight against impunity and “in a case of corruption, it is necessary to chase the 'king' systematically and constantly to overthrow him”. In the sequence, she sentenced that “in order for the Judiciary to be able to condemn someone for corruption, it is necessary that the people hate that person”.
Three months after that congress, the PT government presented an anti-corruption bill, with which it hoped to gain influence on the international stage by complying, in particular, with the standards of the Organization for Economic or Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As a result of this project, Law 12.846/2013 was approved, during the Dilma Rousseff government and in the midst of the June 2013 demonstrations, which provides for the administrative and civil liability of legal entities for the practice of acts against public administration, national or foreign . It included most of the mechanisms provided for in the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – FCPA), whose main objective was to combat acts of corruption by US companies abroad, imposing financial sanctions on them[book]. Under that law, any company that has any connection to the United States and that has paid a foreign official for purposes of corruption can be the subject of prosecution. This, in effect, allows all companies around the world to be subject to its penalties, including those that compete with US companies for large contracts, such as arms and equipment sales, construction and financial services. These very elastic concepts allowed for an increase in penalties arising from the application of the FCPA, from a few million dollars in the 1990s to several billions in the 2010s.
Sérgio Moro, in turn, publicly positioned himself in the sense of toughening the penalties provided for in the bill and guaranteeing the adoption of the awarded accusations[lv], which was contemplated in Law 12.850/2013[lv], entitled Law to Combat Criminal Organizations, which, among other measures, admitted “award-winning collaboration” and “environmental capture of electromagnetic, optical or acoustic signals” as means of obtaining evidence. In early 2012, he was appointed assistant to Minister Rosa Weber, who had just arrived at the Federal Supreme Court, to assist in the final judgment of Criminal Action 470, the infamous “Mensalão”. Apparently, Moro managed to expressly record in the Minister's vote his thesis that “in crimes of power, the greater the power held by the criminal, the greater the ease of hiding the offense. Veiled schemes, distribution of documents, solicitation of witnesses. This results in greater elasticity in the admission of prosecution evidence”. This precedent would be literally adopted by himself, at the head of “Lava Jato” at the time when the operation turned against former President Lula.
In November 2013, on the occasion of the 30th International Conference on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Justice Department Assistant Attorney General James Cole announced that the head of the FCPA from the United States would travel to Brazil in order to carry out a “training session”, as had already been done in Mexico, in October of that same year[lviii].
A few months earlier, Sérgio Moro had resumed an old case of money laundering, linked to “Mensalão”, which he had put aside since 2009, which concerned the relations between Carlos Charter and Alberto Youssef with José Janene, a member of the Progressive Party (PP) . Moro aimed at the investments of the first two in the company Dunel Indústria, made through the bank accounts of a gas station called “Posto da Torre”, in Brasília. The objective was to investigate whether these investments served to hide money laundering in favor of deputy José Janene.
By making the connection between Dunel Indústria, headquartered in the State of Paraná, and the gas station, through which large sums pass, including for certain Petrobras executives, Moro asserted his competence to judge the case. It turns out that most of the crimes allegedly committed by Chater and Youssef had taken place in São Paulo, which would attract the competence of a judge from that jurisdiction to the case. However, supported by superior court decisions and surprisingly, Moro maintained the competence of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, in which he acted. After six months of investigation, he had enough information to issue the first arrest warrants.
On January 29, 2014, the new anti-corruption law (Law 12.846/2013) came into force and on March 17 of that same year, the “Lava Jato” working group was formally created by the Attorney General of the Republic, Rodrigo Janot. At that time, the member of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office who was officiating before the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, Public Prosecutor José Soares Frisch, manifested himself for the incompetence of that Court. He was then replaced by Deltan Dallagnol, who did not raise this incompetence again and went on to lead the task force.
Simultaneously, in September 2014, the United States published a “global anti-corruption agenda” according to which the fight against corruption abroad (through the FCPA) can be used for foreign policy purposes in order to defend national security interests. A month later, Leslie Caldwell, then Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice, gave a speech at Duke University, in which he stated that: “The fight against foreign corruption is not a service we provide to the international community, but an action enforcement necessary to protect our own national security interests and the ability of our companies to compete on a global scale.”[lviii]. In this line, the Brazilian construction giants Odebrecht, OAS or Camargo Correa, in full expansion in Latin America and Africa, entered directly into the firing line of the US authorities.
On October 06, 2015, seventeen members of the Department of Justice, the FBI and the US Ministry of Homeland Security paid a confidential visit to the “Lava Jato” task force in Curitiba, on which occasion they received a detailed explanation of the procedures adopted and gave access to lawyers of businessmen potentially called upon to “collaborate” with American justice, without the Brazilian Executive Branch being informed[lix]. On that occasion, it was agreed that each of the fines imposed on Brazilian companies by FCPA will have to include a portion destined for Brazil and, more specifically, for the “Lava Jato” task force[lx].
Subsequently, Odebrecht was denounced in the United States, but as it was reluctant to accept the award-winning collaboration agreement, the US authorities determined that the Citibank bank should give the company thirty days to close the accounts of its American subsidiary. In case of refusal, the amounts deposited in these accounts would be placed in judicial liquidation, a situation that would exclude the conglomerate from the international financial system and, consequently, would lead to its bankruptcy, which led Odebrecht to agree to “collaborate”.
From 2014 to 2016, after the arrest of Alberto Youssef, preventive arrests and denunciations of former directors of Petrobras and executives of several contractors, especially Odebrecht, followed.
“Operação Lava Jato”, which already had the full support of the country's media, is now also highlighted in the international media. Among other tributes, Sérgio Moro appeared on the list of the magazine's XNUMX most influential personalities. Team[lxi], the magazine to Fortune[lxii] considered him the 13th greatest leader in the world, he was elected by the British newspaper Financial Times as one of the fifty world personalities who shaped the 2010s[lxiii] and was honored at the fourth edition of the Brazil Monaco Project, on which occasion he thanked the country's authorities for their international cooperation with the investigations of the Curitiba task force[lxiv].
Meanwhile, given the loss of support in the National Congress and, consequently, the growing threat of impeachment, President Dilma Rousseff invited former President Lula to assume the position of Minister of the Civil House. Lula's phone was tapped and a conversation he had with Dilma, at a time when there was no judicial authorization for interception, was sent and published by Rede Globo in the middle of Jornal Nacional. This conversation was used to support a decision by Minister Gilmar Mendes that prevented Lula from assuming the position for which he had been nominated.
The process of impeachment ended on August 31, 2016 and resulted in the loss of President Dilma Rousseff's mandate, then replaced by Vice Michel Temer.
At that time, it was already clear that the main target of the operation was former President Lula, the “king” who would fall, as predicted in 2009 by the legal advisor at the US Embassy, Ms. Karine Moreno-Taxman.
Lula was convicted in the Guarujá triplex case for “passive corruption and money laundering” on July 12, 2017, based on “undetermined facts”, which emerges from the 238-page sentence of Judge Moro. In the declaratory embargoes, he admitted that he "never claimed that the values obtained by the company OAS with the contracts with Petrobras were used to pay undue advantages to the former president", which, in itself, would be enough to reveal the lack of competence to the trial of the case.
This conviction was confirmed, on January 24, 2018, by the 8th Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region, formed by judges João Pedro Gebran Neto, Leandro Paulsen and Victor Laus, who also increased the sentence of the 9-year-old former president and half imprisonment to 12 years and 1 month imprisonment under closed regime.
The request for habeas corpus filed by Lula before the STF was rejected on April 04, 2018, by six votes against five, following a tweet of the Army commander threatening the Supreme Court to “assume its institutional responsibilities” in the event of a decision in favor of the former president. A few hours after that decision, Sérgio Moro issued the arrest warrant, Lula was arrested[lxv] and was unable to run in the elections held that same year.
A week before the first round, Moro decided to lift the secrecy of the ex-minister Antônio Palocci’s award-winning delation, which even members of the Federal Public Ministry who worked in “Lava Jato” saw as an attempt to influence the election.[lxvi]. In the second round, Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential election and then appointed Moro, who had removed Lula from the race, as Minister of Justice.
From an economic point of view, the five largest construction companies in Brazil were ruined, Petrobras drastically reduced investments and the entire oil and gas chain was practically destroyed. According to DIEESE study[lxv], “Lava Jato” cost 4,4 million jobs and 3,6% of GDP, with which R$47,4 billion in taxes and R$20,3 billion in payroll contributions were not collected, in addition to having reduced the wage bill in the country by R$85,8 billion. The operation affected the sectors directly involved (oil and gas and civil construction), but also an important range of other segments (due to indirect impacts and the income effect).
With regard to international trade disputes, Brazilian companies lost their ability to influence and political-economic projection in Latin America and Africa, which left the way open for US companies.
The heterodox methods adopted and the collusion between prosecutors and the “Lava Jato” judge became known from the publication on the website The Intercept Brazil[lxviii], in June 2019, from the conversations they had in the app's groups Telegram. Since then, the operation began to disintegrate, which was followed by the release of former President Lula, the departure of Moro from the Bolsonaro government, the closure of the task force within the scope of the MPF and the annulment of the convictions imposed on Lula, due to the territorial incompetence of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba and the suspicion of former judge Sérgio Moro, which led to the annulment of all procedural acts conducted by him.
Final considerations
For all of the above, it is possible to verify that “Operação Lava Jato” was not the exclusive work of a provincial judge in collusion with prosecutors dazzled by power. The intentions of these minor characters would not have been achieved without the essential participation of the Federal Police, the Public Ministry, the Federal Regional Court, the Superior Court of Justice and the Federal Supreme Court, that is, the entire justice system.
It is possible that at some point the members of these institutions acted with the purpose of combating corruption and fulfilling the mission of the bodies in charge of applying criminal law. However, from the outset controversial measures were adopted, which did not meet the minimum technical requirements[lxix], in clear demonstrations that legal dogmatics would be replaced by the personal convictions of the members of the operation, especially the then judge Sérgio Moro. These arbitrary decisions were confirmed by higher courts, which legitimized such action in the eyes of public opinion.
The operation received extensive coverage from the media, which, without delay, began to show explicit support for the course of the actions undertaken. The accumulation of power was such that the justice system was elevated to the condition of protagonist of national political life, which allowed the outbreak of the predominant worldview in the members of this state apparatus. A mixture of moralism and economic liberalism was the recipe prescribed by them to untie the chains that keep the country in backwardness. In the end, the justice system was explicitly instrumentalized to carry out a political project: ending the cycle of the PT government in the Presidency of the Republic, which had lasted more than a decade, an objective that, as seen, was fully achieved.
This true crusade was, to a great extent, predictable, as it confirmed the tendencies that act on law in dependent capitalism, in which the super-exploitation of the workforce produces a legal instance that is very subject to determinations of a political nature, in which technique is substituted by arbitrariness and in which the ideals of justice give way to the trivialization of barbarism. In this context, the unconditional belief that strengthening the justice system was part of the process of consolidating democracy in our country proved to be wrong and revealed ignorance of the tendential laws that determine the dynamics of our social relations.
In short, the “Lava Jato” – and all the harmful consequences it produced – is the result of the tendency towards politicization that characterizes law on the periphery of capitalism and the reformism of the PT government, a political group that behaved like a helpless victim by ignoring that it was destined to be devoured by creation itself.
As far as the political action of the working class is concerned, this experience reveals that winning elections and reaching the government, even in successive mandates, is not the same as winning state power, but only the first step towards this goal. In this project, it is urgent to resume the strategic horizon that aims at the radical transformation of our social relations, since in dependent capitalism there is no possibility of development through reformist actions.
As for the immediate tasks, it is necessary to reaffirm that only structural criticism, including that of law, allows the exact understanding of the determinations that act on capitalist society and, therefore, leads to the identification of the historical trends that are manifested in it. With regard to dependent countries, this knowledge is essential for the adoption of measures that may at least hinder the institutional ruptures that, here, the permanent counterrevolutionary action of the elites does not hesitate to impose. Disregard for immanent criticism opens the way for superficial assessments and tactical mistakes that keep present the risks of new attacks by the justice system against popular political projects that threaten the perpetuation of super-exploitation.
*Alessandro daSilva he holds a doctorate in labor law from USP and a Labor Judge at the TRT of the 12th Region/SC.
References
CITTADINO, Gisele; DORNELLES, Joao Ricardo; PRONER, Carol; RICOBOM, Gisele (organizers). Comments on an announced sentence: the Lula process. Bauru/SP: Praxis Editorial Project, Canal 6 Editora, 2017.
DAROS, Luciano. “The cost of justice in Brazil: an exploratory comparative analysis”. Newsletter. Observatory of political and social elites in Brazil. NUSP/UFPR 2.9 (2015): 1-15.
DAKOLIAS, Mary. The Judiciary Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean: Elements for Reform. Translation by Sandro Eduardo Sardá, Technical Document No. 319, World Bank, Washington, 1996.
DIEESE. Intersectoral economic implications of Operation Lava Jato. São Paulo, March 2021. Available athttps://www.dieese.org.br/outraspublicacoes/2021/impactosLavaJatoEconomia.pdf>.
FERNANDES, Florestan. The bourgeois revolution in Brazil. Sociological interpretation essay. 5th ed., São Paulo: Globo, 2005.
FERRÃO, Brisa Lopez de Mello; RIBEIRO, Ivan Cesar. “Do Brazilian Judges Favor the Weakest Party?” (May 15, 2006). Berkeley Program in Law & Economics. Latin American and Caribbean Law and Economics Association (ALACDE) Annual Papers. Paper 26. Available at: .
FRENCH, John. Drowned in laws: the CLT and the political culture of Brazilian workers. Translation by Paulo Fontes. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2001.
IASI, Mauro. The metamorphoses of class consciousness: the PT between denial and consent. São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2006.
KASHIURA JR, Celso Naoto. Subject of law and capitalism. São Paulo: Other Expressions; University Fold, 2014.
LUCE, Mathias Seibel. Marxist dependency theory: problems and categories. a historical view. São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2018.
MACIEL, Claudio Baldino. “The Independent Judge in the Democratic State”. Available inhttp://www.dhnet.org.br/w3/fsmrn/biblioteca/28_claudio_maciel.html> ..
MARINI, Ruy Mauro. “Dialectics of dependency”. In: STEDILE, João Pedro; TRASPADINI, Roberta (eds.). Ruy Mauro Marini: life and work. 2nd ed., São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2011.
_____. Reformism and counterrevolution: studies on Chile. Translation Diógenes Moura Breda. São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2019
_____. “On the dialectic of dependency”. In: STEDILE, João Pedro; TRASPADINI, Roberta (eds.). Ruy Mauro Marini: life and work. 2nd ed., São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2011.
_____. Underdevelopment and revolution. Translation Fernando Correa Prado and Marina Machado Gouvêa. 6th ed., Florianópolis: Insular, 2017
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_____. Capital: critique of political economy. Book III: The Global Process of Capitalist Production. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2017.
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MELO FILHO, Hugo Cavalcanti. “The Reform of the Brazilian Judiciary: motivations, current situation and perspectives”. CEJ Magazine, Brasília, n. 21, p. 79-86, Apr./June. 2003.
MORO, Sergio Fernando. “Considerations on the Operation Clean hands". CEJ Magazine, Brasília, n. 26, p. 56-62, Jul./Sept. 2004, pp. 56-62.
OSORIO, Jaime. “On the State, Political Power and the Dependent State”. Temporalis, Brasília (DF), year 17, n. 34, Jul./Dec. 2017.
PACHUKANIS, Evgeni. The General Theory of Law and Marxism and Selected Essays (1921-1929). Translated by Lucas Simone. São Paulo: Sundermann, 2017.
RIBEIRO, Ivan Cesar. “ROBIN HOOD versus KING JOHN: How do local judges decide cases in Brazil?”. Available inhttp://www.ipea.gov.br/ipeacaixa/premio2006/docs/trabpremiados/IpeaCaixa2006_Profissional_01lugar_tema01.pdf>.
RODRIGUES, Fabiana Alves. Lava Jato: Institutional learning and strategic action in Justice. São Paulo: WMF Martins Fontes, 2020.
SILVA, Alessandro da. “Law on the periphery of the world: notes on the functioning of the legal instance in dependent capitalism”. Rebela: Brazilian journal of Latin American studies, vol. 9, no. 3, September-December 2019, pp. 403-429.
WINN, Peter. the chilean revolution. Translation Magda Lopes. São Paulo: Editora Unesp, 2010.
Notes
[I] “Moro and Deltan candidacies prove that Lava Jato acted as a political party, says researcher”. Available in . Accessed on 2021.Nov.11.
[ii] Cf. Note from the Judges for Democracy Association: “Moro and Deltan without a mask”. Available in . Accessed on 2941.Nov.07.
[iii] “The concrete is concrete because it is the synthesis of many determinations, that is, the unity of the diverse. That is why the concrete appears in thought as a process of synthesis, as a result, not as a starting point, even though it is the actual starting point and, therefore, the starting point also of intuition and representation. In the first method, the full representation evaporates into abstract determinations, in the second, the abstract determinations lead to the reproduction of the concrete through thought”. MARX, Carl. Introduction to the critique of political economy. The Thinkers Collection. Translation by Edgar Malagodi. São Paulo: Nova Cultural, 2005, pp. 39-40.
[iv] Set of institutions, mainly state, aimed at applying the prescriptions established by law.
[v] We start from the assumption that society is composed of a legal instance and a political instance that cannot be confused, although they interrelate and interact with other instances to form a complex totality.
[vi] The reference work of this theory is the book PACHUKANIS, Evgeni. The general theory of law and Marxism and selected essays (1921-1929). Translated by Lucas Simone. São Paulo: Sundermann, 2017.
[vii] “Historical evolution brings with it not only a change in the content of norms and a change in the institutes of law, but also the development of the legal form as such. The latter, having emerged to a certain degree from civilization, spends a long time in an embryonic state, with weak internal differentiation and without distinguishing itself from contiguous spheres (customs, religion). Then, gradually developing, it reaches its maximum flowering, its maximum differentiation and definition. This high stage of development corresponds to determined economic and social relations. At the same time, this stage is characterized by the emergence of a system of general concepts, which theoretically reflect the legal system as a complete whole. Ibidem, P. 80.
[viii] Cf. KASHIURA JR, Celso Naoto. Subject of law and capitalism. São Paulo: Other Expressions; University Fold, 2014.
[ix] MASCARO, Alysson Leandro. State and political form. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2013, p. 39.
[X] “The birth of capitalism is also, for law, the birth of the fullness of technology. The Anglo-Saxon technique, the common law, made law the result of the predictability of repeated judgments by the courts, in such a way that the English bourgeois knew how to proceed legally in his affairs because he knew the practice of his judges. The technique of continental Europe, the civil law, is the technique as a legislative constraint on the possibilities of judgment, through the prior enactment of laws. The French bourgeoisie trades because the laws enshrine the contract, and there is no unforeseen event in a commercial transaction that is not previously housed in legal categories.” MASCARO, Alysson. Leandro. Critique of legality and Brazilian law. São Paulo: Quartier Latin, 2003, pp. 43-4.
[xi] “The justice of the transactions that take place between the agents of production rests on the fact that these transactions derive from the relations of production as a natural consequence. The legal forms, in which these economic transactions appear as acts of will by those involved, as manifestations of their common will and as contracts whose execution can be imposed on the contracting parties by the State, cannot determine, as mere forms that they are, this content. They can only express it. When it corresponds to the mode of production, when it is appropriate, that content is fair; when it contradicts it, it is unjust. Slavery, on the basis of the capitalist mode of production, is unjust, as is fraud in relation to the quality of the commodity”. MARX, Karl. Capital: critique of political economy. Book III: The Global Process of Capitalist Production. Translation by Rubens Enderle. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2017, p. 386-7.
[xii] Formed between the 1960s and 1970s, the Marxist theory of dependency faced a long period of obscurantism, until it was the object of a critical rescue that began in the mid-1990s and more intensely from the first decade of the XNUMXst century. Its main exponents were André Gunder-Frank, Ruy Mauro Marini, Vânia Bambirra and Theotônio dos Santos.
[xiii] MARINI, Ruy Mauro. “Dialectics of dependency”. In: STEDILE, João Pedro; TRASPADINI, Roberta (eds.). Ruy Mauro Marini: life and work. 2nd ed., São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2011, pp. 134-135.
[xiv] LUCE, Mathias Seibel. Marxist dependency theory: problems and categories. A historical view. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2018., p. 227.
[xv] Ibidem, P. 197.
[xvi] “The fundamental task of the Marxist dependency theory is to determine the specific legality by which the dependent economy is governed. This presupposes, from the outset, placing its study in the broader context of the laws of development of the system as a whole and defining the intermediate degrees by which these laws are specified. This is how the simultaneity of dependency and development can be understood”. MARINI, Ruy Mauro. “On the dialectic of dependency”. In: STEDILE, João Pedro; TRASPADINI, Roberta (eds.). Ruy Mauro Marini: life and work. 2nd ed., São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2011, p. 184.
[xvii] The transfer of value as an unequal exchange occurs when the core nations of capitalism appropriate value produced in the peripheral countries, which occurs through the deterioration of terms of trade in trade, payment of interest, profits, amortizations, dividends and royalties, as well as as well as the appropriation of differential rent and absolute monopoly rent over natural resources. LUCE, Mathias Seibel. Marxist dependency theory. Op cit., pp. 51-52.
[xviii] MARINI, Ruy Mauro. “The capital cycle in the dependent economy”. In FERREIRA, Carla, OSORIO, Jaime, LUCE, Mathias (Orgs.). Capital reproduction pattern. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2012.
[xx] MARX, Carl. The capital. Book III. Op. cite., P. 271.
[xx] MARINI, Ruy Mauro. “Dialectics of dependency”. Op. Cit., P. 149.
[xxx] MARINI, Ruy Mauro. Underdevelopment and revolution. Translation Fernando Correa Prado and Marina Machado Gouvêa. 6. ed., Florianópolis: Insular, 2017, p. 63.
[xxiii] It should be remembered that it is the equivalence relationship between goods, in terms of the value they carry, which requires equality between subjects carrying goods. Cf. KASHIURA JR, Celso Naoto. Subject of law and capitalism. Op. Cit., P. 168.
[xxiii] FERRÃO, Brisa Lopez de Mello; RIBEIRO, Ivan Cesar. “Do Brazilian Judges Favor the Weakest Party?” (May 15, 2006). Berkeley Program in Law & Economics. Latin American and Caribbean Law and Economics Association (ALACDE) Annual Papers. Paper 26. Available at: . Accessed on 0715991.Dec.0715991.
[xxv] RIBEIRO, Ivan Cesar. “ROBIN HOOD versus KING JOHN: How do local judges decide cases in Brazil?”. Available in Accessed on 2006.Dec.2006.
[xxiv] For a deeper understanding of the theme cf. SILVA, Alessandro da. “Law on the periphery of the world: notes on the functioning of the legal instance in dependent capitalism”. Rebela: Brazilian journal of Latin American studies, vol. 9, no. 3, September-December 2019, pp. 403-429.
[xxv] Cf. IASI, Mauro. The metamorphoses of class consciousness: the PT between denial and consent. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2006, especially the second part of the work.
[xxviii] The greatest symbol of this stance was the candidate for Vice-President of the Republic that made up the ticket headed by the PT, the businessman from the textile sector José Alencar, from the Liberal Party (PL).
[xxviii] In his inauguration speech for the Presidency of the Republic in 2003, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva stated that “To put Brazil back on the path of growth, which generates much-needed jobs, we need an authentic social pact for change and a alliance that objectively intertwines work and productive capital, generators of the Nation's fundamental wealth, so that Brazil overcomes the current stagnation and sails again in the open sea of economic and social development. The social pact will also be decisive in making viable the reforms that Brazilian society demands and that I committed myself to implementing: pension reform, tax reform, political reform and labor legislation, in addition to agrarian reform itself”. Available inhttp://www.biblioteca.presidencia.gov.br/presidencia/ex-presidentes/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva/discursos/discursos-de-posse/discurso-de-posse-1o-mandato>. Accessed on 04.Jul.2021.
[xxix] Upon taking office as Minister of Justice on 03/01/2003, Márcio Thomaz Bastou highlighted that among his main challenges was the “reconstruction of republican institutions, which is a radical reform of the Judiciary, which I intend to focus on, which I intend to direct much of the efforts of this Ministry of Justice, which is the ministry of citizenship", so that "justice is closer to the people, is more accessible and manages to encompass, bring to its access all the multitudes and majorities that have remained until today excluded from it, just as they are excluded from the fundamental goods of life”. Available inhttps://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u44397.shtml>. Accessed on 04.Jul.2021.
[xxx] The Constitutional Amendment Proposal that resulted in the reform of the Judiciary dates from 1992 and was authored by PT Federal Deputy Hélio Bicudo who, in 2015, would be one of the signatories of the impeachment request, together with Miguel Reale Júnior and Janaína Conceição Paschoal, professors from the Faculty of Law of Largo São Francisco (USP), which formalized the 2016 coup against President Dilma Roussef.
[xxxii] DAKOLIAS, Mary. The Judiciary Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean: Elements for Reform. Translation Sandro Eduardo Sardá, Technical Document No. 319, World Bank, Washington, 1996, p. 19.
[xxxi] MACIEL, Claudio Baldino. “The Independent Judge in the Democratic State”. Available inhttp://www.dhnet.org.br/w3/fsmrn/biblioteca/28_claudio_maciel.html>. Accessed on 04.Jul.2021. Also see MELO FILHO, Hugo Cavalcanti. “The Reform of the Brazilian Judiciary: motivations, current situation and perspectives”. CEJ Magazine, Brasilia, n. 21, p. 79-86, Apr./June. 2003.
[xxxii] “Dilma praises the Fiscal Responsibility Law and criticizes PT for having voted against it”. Available inhttps://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/politica/2016/08/29/interna_politica,798574/dilma-elogia-lei-de-responsabilidade-fiscal-e-critica-pt.shtml>. Accessed on 06.Aug.2021.
[xxxv] See, for example, Law 12.421/2011, which created 12 (twelve) positions of Judge at the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region, based in the city of Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul.
[xxxiv] DAROS, Luciano. “The cost of justice in Brazil: an exploratory comparative analysis”. Newsletter. Observatory of political and social elites in Brazil. NUSP/UFPR 2.9 (2015): 1-15.
[xxxiv] Article 96 of the Federal Constitution guarantees the administrative, financial and budgetary autonomy of the Judiciary.
[xxxviii] Judges are guaranteed lifetime, irremovability and irreducibility of subsidies, under the terms of art. 95 of the Federal Constitution.
[xxxviii] See, for example, the judicial decisions that guaranteed rights resulting from same-sex unions and the abortion of anencephalic fetuses.
[xxxix] The filing of public civil actions and collective civil actions asserted collective rights, especially in the consumer and environmental areas.
[xl] The expansion of the Labor Court allowed parts of the population that were excluded to have access to Justice, through an oral process and, until then, completely free of charge.
[xi] MARINI, Ruy Mauro. Reformism and counterrevolution: studies on Chile. Translation Diógenes Moura Breda. São Paulo: Popular Expression, 2019, p. 23.
[xliii] Salvador Allende's government nationalized the copper industry, the main one in that country, nationalized large and medium-sized industries, promoted agrarian reform, raised wages and froze commodity prices, so that it promoted reforms that effectively opposed the general interests of the bourgeoisie. Cf. WINN, Peter. The Chilean Revolution. Translation Magda Lopes. São Paulo: Editora Unesp, 2010.
[xiii] “With the 'situation under control', the hot defense of order it can be done without the 'security bodies' needing the tactical support of a civil war climate, although this is maintained, through police-military repression and 'political compression'. As a result, the preventive counterrevolution, which dissipates at the historical level of direct forms of class struggle, reappears in a concentrated and institutionalized manner, as a specialized social and political process, incorporated into the state apparatus”. FERNANDES, Florestan. The bourgeois revolution in Brazil. Sociological interpretation essay. 5th ed., São Paulo: Globo, 2005, p. 420.
[xiv] “Although they defend legal equality and criticize clientelism, Brazilians have always maintained to a high degree what could be seen as a certain cynicism about the law. Although people are not necessarily resigned to this, in Brazil it is frankly recognized that there is, in practice, one law for the powerful and another for the weak, one for those who have influential friends and another for those who do not. That is, as another proverb as precise as it is malicious says: 'For friends, everything; to the enemies the law'”. FRENCH, John. Drowned in laws: the CLT and the political culture of Brazilian workers. Translation by Paulo Fontes. São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2001, p. 36.
[xlv] OSORIO, Jaime. “On the State, Political Power and the Dependent State”. Temporalis, Brasília (DF), year 17, n. 34, Jul./Dec. 2017, p. 49.
[xlv] Cf. RODRIGUES, Fabiana Alves. Lava Jato: Institutional learning and strategic action in Justice. São Paulo: WMF Martins Fontes, 2020.
[xlv] Cf., for example, the collection gathered in CITTADINO, Gisele; DORNELLES, Joao Ricardo; PRONER, Carol; RICOBOM, Gisele (organizers). Comments on an announced sentence: the Lula process. Bauru/SP: Praxis Editorial Project, Canal 6 Editora, 2017.
[xlviii] “Operation Car Wash Was No Magic Bullet”. Available inhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/opinion/international-world/car-wash-operation-brazil-bolsonaro.html>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021. “What did Lava Jato, Brazil's anti-corruption investigation, achieve?”. Available inhttps://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/03/09/what-did-lava-jato-brazils-anti-corruption-investigation-achieve>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[xlix] This historical reconstitution is basically based on the work of Gaspard Estrada and Nicolas Bourcier in the French newspaper Le Monde, entitled “lava Jato the Brazilian trap”. Available inhttps://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/04/11/lava-jato-the-brazilian-trap_6076361_3210.html>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[l] MORO, Sergio Fernando. “Considerations on the Operation Clean hands”. CEJ Magazine, Brasilia, n. 26, p. 56-62, Jul./Sept. 2004, pp. 56-62.
[li] “Brazil's new hero is a nerdy judge who is tough on official corruption”. Available inhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazils-new-hero-is-a-nerdy-judge-who-is-tough-on-official-corruption/2015/12/23/54287604-7bf1-11e5-bfb6-65300a5ff562_story.html>. Accessed on 08.Aug.2021.
[liiii] “PROJETO PONTES: BUILDING BRIDGES TO BRAZILIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT”. Available inhttps://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BRASILIA1282_a.html>. Accessed on 08.Aug.2021.
[iii] The program and speakers can be consulted athttp://www.adpf.org.br/adpf/imagens/noticias/chamadaPrincipal/7506_programacao_IV_CNDPF.pdf>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[book] “FCPA creates sanctions to combat commercial corruption”. Available inhttps://www.conjur.com.br/2012-abr-11/fcpa-cria-sancoes-combate-corrupcao-comercial-internacional>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lv] "Sérgio Moro defends penal reform". Available inhttps://valor.globo.com/politica/coluna/sergio-moro-defende-reforma-penal.ghtml>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lv] The approval of this law involved a broad mobilization of members of the institutions that make up the justice system, several of which were brought together in the National Strategy to Combat Corruption and Money Laundering (ENCCLA). The members of this Strategy hold periodic meetings, and the one held between November 23 and 26, 2010 resulted in the Letter of Florianópolis, according to which “in the scope of ENCCLA, bills were prepared to improve the prevention and repression of corruption , money laundering and organized crime. Among them, those that gave rise to PL 3443/2008, which modernizes Law 9.613/1998 (Money Laundering Law), and PL 6578/2009, which typifies Criminal Organizations and regulates the use of special investigation techniques”. PL 6578/2009 would give rise to Law 12.850/2013. Available in . Accessed on 10.Nov.10.
[lviii] "Brazil's Anti-Corruption Law Is More Strict Than FCPA". Available in . Accessed on 2013.Aug. 21.
[lviii] “For all of these reasons, fighting foreign corruption is not a service we provide to the global community, but rather a necessary enforcement action to protect our own national security interests and the ability of our US companies to compete on a global scale”. Available inhttps://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-leslie-r-caldwell-speaks-duke-university-school-law>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lix] “How Lava Jato hid the visit of the FBI and American prosecutors from the federal government”. Available inhttps://apublica.org/2020/03/como-a-lava-jato-escondeu-do-governo-federal-visita-do-fbi-e-procuradores-americanos>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lx] “Since 2015, Lava Jato has discussed sharing a Petrobras fine with Americans”. Available inhttps://exame.com/brasil/desde-2015-lava-jato-discutia-repartir-multa-da-petrobras-com-americanos>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxi] “Sérgio Moro appears on the magazine's '100 most influential' list Team”. Available inhttp://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2016/04/sergio-moro-aparece-na-lista-dos-100-mais-influentes-da-revista-time.html>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxii] “Moro is considered by 'Fortune' the 13th greatest leader in the world”. Available inhttps://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,sergio-moro-e-considerado-pela-fortune-o-13-maior-lider-mundial,10000023003>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxiii] “Sérgio Moro is elected one of the 50 personalities of the decade by the newspaper Financial Times”. Available inhttps://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2019/12/24/sergio-moro-e-eleito-uma-das-50-personalidades-da-decada-pelo-jornal-financial-times.ghtml>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxiv] “Sérgio Moro is honored at a gala in Monaco”. Available inhttps://veja.abril.com.br/politica/sergio-moro-e-homenageado-em-baile-de-gala-em-monaco>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxv] Lula would still be sentenced, in the case of Sítio de Atibaia, to 17 years, 1 month and 10 days of imprisonment in a closed regime.
[lxvi] "Palocci's Delation: Prosecutors saw Moro's attempt to influence the elections". Available inhttps://www.conjur.com.br/2021-fev-04/procuradores-viram-tentativa-moro-influenciar-eleicoes>. Accessed on 01.Aug.2021.
[lxv] DIEESE. Intersectoral economic implications of Operation Lava Jato. São Paulo, March 2021. Available athttps://www.dieese.org.br/outraspublicacoes/2021/impactosLavaJatoEconomia.pdf>. Accessed on 01.Aug.2021.
[lxviii] The series of reports is available athttps://theintercept.com/series/mensagens-lava-jato>. Accessed on 07.Aug.2021.
[lxix] See, for example, the question of the territorial incompetence of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, which would come to be recognized by the STF.