Brazil: Lula da Silva proposes his personal lawyer as new member of the Supreme Court

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva proposed this Thursday as the new member of the Supreme Court to his personal lawyer, Cristiano Zanin, who managed to cancel the trials that at the time led the progressive leader to prison.

Lula himself confirmed to reporters that he had suggested Zanin’s name e He said he was convinced he would be “a great magistrate”not only because of the work he did in his defense, but also because of his “qualities as a lawyer”.

Lula’s proposal will be presented to the Senate in the coming weeks and, if approved, Zanin will join the highest court to fill the vacancy that opened last April. when Judge Ricardo Lewandowski retired and the court was left with ten of its eleven members.

Zanin, 47, graduated in 1999 from the Pontifical Catholic University of San Paolo and specializes in civil law, although he also has a solid formation in constitutional and procedural matters.

Lawyer

He also has extensive experience in commercial litigation and in recent years has studied and denounced the abusive use of legal mechanisms, known as “legislation” and of which he claimed that the current president was a victim.

For a decade he was Lula’s personal lawyer and defended the various corruption cases he faced in the framework of Operation Lava Jato, which imprisoned dozens of politicians and businessmen for fraudulent contracts with the Petrobras company and other state companies.

Lula was convicted in the second instance and He spent 580 days in prisonperiod that included the 2018 elections, from which he was excluded precisely because of his condition as a prisoner and in which the far-right Jair Bolsonaro won in the end.

In 2019 he regained his freedom, thanks to Zanin’s work in Cassationwhich finally established the jurisprudence and established that, according to the Constitution, a convict should be sent to prison only once the possibilities of appeal have been exhausted.

Two years later, Lula’s attorney also convinced the Supreme Court that the trials in which he was convicted had been littered with various irregularities, whereby they were canceled and the progressive leader recovered all his political rights.

In front of Sergio Moro

The cancellation of these trials opened the door to a new candidacy for Lula in last year’s elections, in which he prevailed over Bolsonaro and managed to return to the power he had exercised for two consecutive terms, between 2003 and 2010.

In the coming weeks, Zanin must be summoned for an interview in the Constitutional Commission and Judge of the Senate and, if approved, his appointment will be submitted to the plenary assembly of the Upper House.

Among the members of the Senate is the former judge Sérgio Moro, responsible in the first instance of Operation Lava Jato and who issued the first sentences against Lula, then canceled also due to irregular maneuvers by the then magistrate, accused of not having maintained the due “impartiality” in the trials.

Moro, who was Bolsonaro’s justice minister, even though he later quarreled with the far right, has already announced that he will oppose the appointment of Zanin, whom he said hurts some “republican principles” for his “public and manifest friendship” with the current president.

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