Civil Death

When invested with leadership, the scoundrel acts, invents, brings together, and energizes masses of scoundrels. Nelson Rodrigues

This week, Minister Dias Toffoli of the Federal Supreme Court wrote the epitaph for Operation Car Wash with the following sentence: "The biggest mistake of the Brazilian judiciary."

The Minister defines Operation Car Wash as "a setup resulting from a power project by certain public officials in their goal of conquering the State." Minister Toffoli says that "...these officials disregarded due process, failed to comply with higher court decisions, subverted evidence, acted with partiality, and acted outside their sphere of competence."  The Minister continues: "...ultimately, they deliberately failed to distinguish between innocent people and criminals. They resorted to psychological torture, a 21st-century form of the PAU DE ARARA, to obtain 'evidence' against innocent people."

There is a growing awareness of the extent of the disloyalty of the so-called Curitiba republic. Judges and prosecutors, umbilically united in a political project of power and personal enrichment, have not only spat on the constitutional rights and guarantees of citizens, but also spat on the political and legal classes and destroyed business sectors, causing millions of job losses with loss of family income and huge financial losses to the country.

Unmasked by a twist of fate, it is sickening to read the foul electronic messages from these prosecutors mocking and ridiculing the suffering of hundreds of families. They mocked the death of relatives of prisoners; they laughed at the clandestine wiretaps they made of defense attorneys and, with sarcasm worthy of scoundrels, they conspired with the crooked judge on the next steps to keep the media entertained.

Social judgment is not remedied by legal redress.

No matter how much this legal aberration is exposed and the soul is cleansed by the possibility of putting these lawbreakers in jail, the damage they have caused to society and individuals is irreparable.

People who were unfairly caught up in this disastrous operation ended up being acquitted in other jurisdictions. Even so, they live and will continue to live for the rest of their lives with the trauma of their suffering and with the scenes of their testimonies, arrests, and exposure of family members in the media and on social networks.

Their children suffered prejudice at school, banks canceled their checking accounts, they were expelled from recreational clubs, and others had their entry visas to other countries canceled. Some suffered persecution in other countries. They were abandoned by friends or supposed friends, and even family members turned their backs on them. To paraphrase the philosopher Karl Marx, they ceased to be social beings.

Even if acquitted in criminal court, a defendant in the Lava Jato case will not be able to return to civilian life naturally. In today's reality, surrounded by controls and rules of conduct that prioritize appearance over truth, they will have difficulty with simple things, such as selling or renting a property. Financial institutions will not grant them credit, nor will the companies in which they may participate. Private companies' compliance departments will not accept hiring people with this level of exposure, meaning that this individual, even if acquitted, has been declared socially dead. They have become a social nobody, a mere wandering soul in the private world.

The Brazilian Federal Constitution enshrines the principle of presumption of innocence. In other words, no one shall be deprived of their liberty or rights until a final decision establishes their conviction. In practice, and with the advent of the internet, civil conviction occurs when the media and social networks enter the fray. Being acquitted in the future matters little, because what counts is the moment, the now. The episode at the elementary school in São Paulo and the suicide of the dean of the college in Santa Catarina illustrate this concept well.

Ruy Barbosa said that "Justice delayed is not justice, but rather qualified and manifest injustice." Therefore, the notion of time is crucial to the definition of justice. Minister Toffoli's decision cleanses the souls of the innocent, but it comes too late for them to be reborn from civil death.