Brazil's constitutional order faces one of its gravest tests as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has privately told allies that Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli should resign, according to a report by Folha de S.Paulo.
The extraordinary demand - from a president targeting a sitting justice on the court that guards Brazil's democracy - comes amid growing revelations linking Toffoli to a sprawling banking scandal that has rocked the country's financial sector. The president's irritation, expressed in recent private conversations, marks a rare and dangerous collision between executive and judicial power in Latin America's largest democracy.
Toffoli, appointed to the Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) in 2009 during Lula's second term, now finds his patron turned adversary. The justice has faced mounting scrutiny over alleged connections to financial irregularities involving major Brazilian banks, though specific charges have not been filed.
The clash carries profound implications beyond Brasília. Brazil's Supreme Court has emerged as the most powerful judicial institution in Latin America, intervening in everything from corruption investigations to pandemic policy. An executive assault on its independence would reverberate across a region where courts have become the last bulwark against democratic backsliding.
Lula's frustration also reflects a bitter irony: his own political resurrection depended on the STF's decision to annul his corruption convictions in 2021, clearing his path to a third presidency. Now that same president contemplates forcing out a justice he himself appointed.
Legal scholars in Brazil emphasize that Supreme Court justices serve until age 75 and can only be removed through impeachment by the Senate - a process requiring a two-thirds majority that Lula does not command. His public pressure on Toffoli to resign voluntarily thus represents an attempt to circumvent constitutional protections, a move that opposition figures have already condemned as an attack on judicial independence.
The banking scandal at the center of the controversy involves allegations of improper influence in regulatory decisions affecting major financial institutions. Brazilian media reports suggest that Toffoli may have intervened in matters where he had personal or political interests, though the justice has denied any wrongdoing.
For Latin America, the crisis in Brasília arrives at a precarious moment. From Venezuela's judicial farce to El Salvador's court-packing to Peru's constitutional chaos, the region's courts have become battlegrounds between democratic norms and political expediency. Brazil, with its robust institutions and continental influence, was supposed to be different.
The standoff also complicates Lula's broader agenda. His administration has struggled with a hostile Congress, inflation concerns, and the persistent political force of former president Jair Bolsonaro's movement. A public war with the Supreme Court could fracture his governing coalition and energize his opponents, who already accuse the president of authoritarian tendencies.
Opposition senators have warned that any attempt to force Toffoli's resignation without due process would provoke a constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, legal analysts note that Brazil's fragile political equilibrium depends on mutual restraint among its three branches - a restraint that appears to be eroding.
The crisis will test whether Brazil's democratic institutions, hard-won after decades of military dictatorship, can withstand pressure from the very politicians who claim to defend them. For 650 million people across Latin America watching what happens in their region's democratic anchor, the answer matters profoundly.
Twenty countries, 650 million people, and yes, we're more than your neighbor's problems. Somos nuestra propia historia - but right now, that history is being written in the conflict between a president and his own appointee.
