According to Moraes, “our electoral justice system and our Federal Supreme Court have already shown that this is a land that has law. Social networks are not lawless lands. They will only continue to operate in Brazil if they respect Brazilian law, regardless of the bravado of irresponsible big tech leaders.”

In October, billionaire Elon Musk’s social network X paid 28.6 million reais (US$ 4.7) in fines after its platform was taken offline in Brazil for two months due to non-compliance with Moraes’ own order to block some accounts.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk aligned himself with US President-elect Donald Trump during last year’s election campaign. Similarly, in announcing the relaxation of controls and moderation on his platforms, Mark Zuckerberg also signaled support for Trump.

Zuckerberg stated he would “work with President Trump to pressure governments worldwide that are persecuting American companies and pushing for more censorship.” The Meta owner also claimed that Latin American countries have “secret courts” that can discreetly order companies to remove content.

In the view of Justice Moraes, the rapporteur for inquiries into fake news, digital militias, and coup d’état, the country’s challenge is “to prevent these giant conglomerates, the big techs, and their irresponsible leaders — who believe that because they have money they can rule the world — from evading regulation and accountability.”

January 8

For Moraes, the “primary cause” of violent and anti-democratic acts like the January 8, 2023 events in the Three Powers Square in Brazil’s capital Brasília was the spread of lies and the mass mobilization fueled by social networks.

“All of this emerged when extremists worldwide, particularly right-wing radicals, took control of social networks to manipulate people and undermine democracy from within. What this new form of extremist digital populism is doing is eroding democracy from the inside,” he stated.

Alexandre de Moraes made his statements during a “conversation circle” at the Supreme Court to discuss the importance of democracy. Also present at the event, Justice Gilmar Mendes stated that “on January 8, 2023, extremism and intolerance reached their peak when an insane mob, incited by widespread mobilization on social networks, invaded the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasília.”

Mendes advocated for what he calls “digital constitutionalism,” a legal principle that “enshrines the protection of fundamental rights in the digital realm and imposes a duty of care on social networks regarding the dissemination of illegal content.” He emphasized that “this normative approach should never be confused with censorship. It is not censorship.”

Justice Mendes believes that digital constitutionalism “represents not only a legal evolution but also the cornerstone for building a democratic and pluralistic digital space, one that harmonizes freedom of expression with social responsibility in the virtual environment.”

Brazil’s newly appointed Communication Minister Sidonio Palmeira criticized Meta’s decision, calling it “bad for democracy.”

“[Without fact-checking] you don’t control the spread of hate, misinformation and fake news,” he said, adding that Brazil needs to regulate social media, similarly to Europe.

Zuckerberg had said Meta would begin by scrapping fact checkers in the US. Brazil’s prosecutor’s office gave the company 30 days to clarify whether it intends to implement the changes in Brazil as well.

The prosecutors’ order was related to an ongoing probe of the actions taken by social media platforms to combat misinformation and violence online in Brazil.

Abr

But the company said the website would remain available to users in Brazil.

While X argued that it was protecting free speech and standing up against “illegal secret censorship,” Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes argued he was standing up against disinformation and tyranny in Brazil.

In April, Moraes had ordered an investigation into Musk, accusing him of “criminal instrumentalization” of the platform. An order detailed that Musk had reactivated banned accounts and was then threatened with a fine for each instance.

This comes roughly a week after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro banned the website for a 10-day period over an election result dispute and accused Musk of inciting hate, civil war, and death.

Musk has been increasingly outspoken on Latin American politics, as he has on politics in general, of late.

What did X say?

“Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions,” X’s Global Government Affairs department said in a post on Saturday.

“We are deeply saddened that we have been forced to make this decision. The responsibility lies solely with Alexandre de Moraes,” the post read. “His actions are incompatible with democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make — democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.”

The post said X’s numerous appeals went unheard at the court while the public was not informed of the orders. The Brazilian office’s staff had “no responsibility or control” over whether content was blocked from the platform.

The decision to close down local operations was taken to protect the safety of the staff, it said.

Billionaire Musk, in his post, said the decision was “difficult, but, if we had agreed to Alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”

What did Moraes say?

Moraes has previously ordered several social media accounts Brazil’s authorities suspected of spreading disinformation, including those of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who tried discrediting the nation’s voting system after he lost the 2022 election.

“Freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom of aggression,” Moraes has said. “It doesn’t mean the freedom to defend tyranny.”

Judge Moraes presided over Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal which declared Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again last year, saying that he had spread disinformation about the election system.

The magistrate said one of the plans was to have him arrested by the Army’s Special Forces, who would send him to Goiânia. Another option was an assassination, with the judge’s body to be dumped on the way to the capital of Goiás. The third possibility was to hang him in the Three Branches Square.

“To feel the level of aggression and hatred of these people, who don’t know how to differentiate the individual from the institution,” De Moraes told the newspaper.

Almost a year after the events, the STF has convicted 30 people while another 29 criminal cases are to be ruled upon in the first week of February after the summer recess. Moraes is rapporteur in 1,345 cases against Jan. 8 coup plotters.

”Democracy is untouchable and the STF will not allow any kind of impunity (…) The institutions have shown their maturity and strength, defending the Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law,” Moraes told daily newspaper Estadão.

The judge also argued that the idea was to take control of Congress until President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued a decree of Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO), after which they would try to convince the army to join the anti-democratic movement “which shows how right it was not to decree a GLO,” De Moraes told O Globo while insisting on regulating social media.

Federal Police Chief Andrei Passos Rodrigues told Estadão that “we can’t afford to see if it’s bravado” or not. The threats to Moraes were “woven into social networks in exchanges of messages,” he also explained.

According to Passos Rodrigues, the social media postings even contemplated the “elimination” of Moraes “in the most barbaric ways possible.”

”What I can say is that this is absolutely serious and we will always act very rigorously once these people (authors of the alleged plan to attack the minister) have been identified. There was this situation that the minister made public and this fact is very worrying.“

Meanwhile, Acting Justice Minister Ricardo Cappelli was quoted by Agência Brasil as saying that the alleged plot to assassinate Moraes was extremely serious and unacceptable and that the investigations must go to ”the last consequences.” Moraes even told O Globo that the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) was involved in the plot using state-of-the-art Israeli technology.

“It is extremely serious and unacceptable to consider attempting the life of a minister of the Supreme Court of Brazil,” Cappelli said.

The rioters are believed to be supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Mercopress

According to the STF’s decision, “injurious” and “lying” information happens under two scenarios: The first is when at the time of publication there were “concrete indications” that the accusations made by the interviewee were false. The second scenario is if the media outlet “failed to observe the duty of care in verifying the veracity of the facts and in disclosing the existence of such indications.”

The case stems from a 1995 complaint against Diário de Pernambuco for having published an interview in which a police commissioner accused a politician, without evidence, of having participated in a bomb attack at the São Paulo airport during the military dictatorship.

Diario de Pernambuco invoked freedom of the press but was ultimately ordered to pay compensation to the plaintiff, which was upheld by the STF.

Reporters Without Borders and other organizations signed a letter this week warning of a “permanent threat of legal proceedings” and the possibility of self-censorship. “Imputing a responsibility that does not belong to the media may force them, for example, to have to make a prior control of the interviewees’ answers or to stop interviewing,” the signatories asserted.

In the last 10 years, 6,000 complaints have been registered with the aim of “curtailing journalistic content,” the note also pointed out.

“In the event of publication of an interview in which the interviewee falsely accuses a third party of committing a crime, the newspaper company can only be held civilly liable if, at the time of publication, there was concrete evidence of the falsity of the accusation, and the media outlet failed to observe its duty of care in verifying the veracity of the facts and disclosing the existence of such evidence,” Agência Brasil quoted the Supreme Court’s ruling as saying.

The thesis also opens the way for the removal of content published on social networks that is considered untrue.

Despite freedom of the press, removing content that contains information that is demonstrably “injurious, defamatory, slanderous or untruthful” is allowed.

The rationale was drafted by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, and the suggestion to include the possibility of removing content was raised by Lula’s appointee Justice Cristiano Zanin, Agência Brasil also said.

“The classic issue of freedom of the press, eventual and exceptional abuse, was about newspapers and periodicals. Then, once they were published, liability ended because the newspaper was of that day. Today, with social networks, we saw this in the elections, that content continues,” said Moraes.

Former Federal Deputy Ricardo Zarattini Filho sued Diário de Pernambuco for moral damages as a result of an article published in 1995 in which politician Wandenkolk Wanderley claimed that Zarattini, who died in 2017, was responsible for the bombing of Recife airport in 1966, during the military dictatorship.

Zarattini’s legal team argued that Wandenkolk had made false accusations and that the publication of the interview had caused serious damage to their client’s honor.

STF Chief Justice Luís Roberto Barroso said that the Court’s decision applies to cases of bad faith and negligence in investigating the facts. In his view, the only restriction on freedom of expression is the malicious act of broadcasting false information.

“This case was judged with great exceptionality because there was an intention to harm someone, who had already been acquitted. If a person has been acquitted, you can’t say they’ve been convicted. If a person has never been convicted, you can’t say that they have been convicted,” he said.

Mercopress

Although the country’s official indigenist policy toward these groups since 1987 has been to not engage in any contact, regardless of whether there’s a pandemic, a federal law passed in July 2020 allows religious missionaries to remain inside these reserves. This triggered a lawsuit by Indigenous and political organizations, which the Supreme Federal Court (STF) has now ruled in favor of.

The 2020 law attempted to “legitimize something that is already forbidden,” said Carolina Ribeiro Santana, a lawyer for the Observatory for the Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI), one of the co-authors of the lawsuit. “As we are under an anti-Indigenous government, it is important to have a decision which reassures the Indigenous policy.”

OPI authored the lawsuit along with the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) — the country’s largest Indigenous organization — and the Workers Party (PT). Justice Luís Roberto Barroso issued the court’s ruling on September 24.

Last year, the court had already forbidden the entry of outsiders into these areas while hearing another case where Indigenous organizations urged the federal government to implement measures, including imposing sanitary barriers, to protect the Indigenous population from COVID-19.

“In the current situation, where there is an ongoing pandemic, the peoples in isolation and recent contact are the most exposed to the risk of contagion and extinction,” Barroso said in that earlier ruling.

But threats against uncontacted Indigenous groups have escalated under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has called for Indigenous people to be “integrated into society.” Bolsonaro’s hostility toward Indigenous people is no secret; last year, in his weekly live transmission on social media, he declared that, “more and more, the Indigenous is a human being just like us.”

At the same time, Bolsonaro is hugely popular with Brazil’s evangelicals, who are credited with helping him win the 2018 election. (His middle name translates to “Messiah.”)

Once in office, he appointed evangelical leaders to key posts in his administration, including Ricardo Lopes Dias, who, until November 2020, headed the department responsible for protecting isolated and recently contacted communities at Funai, the Indigenous affairs agency.

Dias was a pastor with the New Tribes Mission, an evangelical group notorious for reportedly spreading disease among the Zo’é people living in northern Pará state. More than a third of the Zo’é population subsequently died. Another top official, Damares Alves, the minister for women, family and human rights, is also reportedly linked to missionary groups, according to BBC News Brasil.

“These people choose isolation,” anthropologist Aparecida Vilaça, from the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, told in a phone interview. “What the state has to do is to not let anyone get in.”

One of the reasons for this isolation, according to Indigenous organizations, is precisely the trauma of almost being exterminated by the diseases brought by non-Indigenous people, like influenza, measles and malaria; Indigenous people, especially isolated ones, don’t have immunity to many of these pathogens.

But the threat of disease isn’t the only one introduced by missionaries, even to non-isolated groups. According to lawyer Eliésio Marubo, from Vale do Javari reserve in northern Amazonas state, missionaries undermine the social cohesion of the community by favoring the leaders who support them.

“The culture of our people is also weakened because certain practices are forbidden [by the missionaries], like traditional medicine,” Eliésio Marubo said. “The relationship with the territory also changes. Before, we used to move around a lot, but the missionaries want us to stay in one place only.”

Vale do Javari is home to the largest number of isolated Indigenous people in the world: 10 out of the 28 confirmed groups of isolated people in Brazil. The reserve is also home to non-isolated Indigenous groups, like the Marubo.

“It is a cultural destruction,” anthropologist Aparecida Vilaça said of the missions’ presence in Indigenous reserves. Vilaça witnessed the effects of missionary groups on an Indigenous community in Rondônia, also in the Amazon region. “They do a very deep process of humiliation of the traditional practices, by saying their dances and beliefs are things of the devil,” she said.

According to Vilaça, these changes in the traditional way of life make the Indigenous people more vulnerable to several economic interests. “The missionaries lead to the settling of all the community in the same place, releasing land to farmers and loggers. We can’t forget that these lands are very coveted,” she said.

Vilaça said the desire to convert Indigenous groups started with the colonization of Brazil, by the Catholic Church, and is now led by evangelical groups, some of which have deep pockets.

Rejection of “Consentement” Thesis

As the lawyer for Univaja, the Union of Indigenous People of Vale do Javari, Eliésio Marubo went to court last year against Andrew Tonkin, a U.S. evangelical Baptist missionary who was planning to travel to the reserve amid the pandemic to contact isolated Indigenous groups.

“Missionaries have been harassing us for 60 years,” he said. “They have helicopters, airplanes and they fly from here to the United States.”

Besides granting Univaja’s request to ban Tonkin’s entry, a federal court also ordered the expulsion of missionaries still inside the territory. Despite the victory, the missionaries are still lurking, Eliésio Marubo said. “They remain on the borders of the reserve, trying to co-opt people,” he said.

In a setback for the Indigenous groups, Justice Barroso denied their request to remove the missionaries already inside the reserves. Besides creating a risk of contagion, Barroso said — since evicting them could “require third parties to enter such areas” — it was not clear that isolated groups had not consented to their presence.

“How can you give consent for something that you have no idea what it is? To people who don’t even speak their language?” Vilaça said. She added that missionaries use several strategies to win over the isolated people. “They offer axes, knives, and other benefits to those who join them.”

In their argument to the STF, the Indigenous groups noted that the way isolated communities express their will is different from the rest of society. “Our society gives prevalence to speech, to writing, and these people are talking to us in a different way. When they run away or attack an approaching person, it is a way of saying no,” Santana said.

Barroso’s ruling is a precautionary measure, meaning the case will be subject to trial in the STF plenary. In a statement, the office of Brazil’s attorney general said it had been notified of the decision but will only manifest in the court. Funai didn’t reply to requests for comment.

This article appeared originally in Mongabay. Read the original article here: https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/brazil-court-emphasizes-ban-on-missionaries-trying-to-contact-isolated-indigenous/

“Everybody has to buy a rifle, wow! Armed people will never be enslaved. I know it costs a lot. An idiot will say: ‘Ah, what you have to buy is beans.’ If you don’t want to, don’t buy the rifle, but do not piss off whoever wants to buy it,” said Bolsonaro as he left the Palácio da Alvorada in Brazilian capital Brasília.

The former Army captain recalled that registered hunters, shooters and collectors “may buy a rifle,” but landowners cannot. “If you don’t want to buy rifles, please don’t piss off whoever wants to buy them,” he insisted.

Since the 2018 presidential campaign and after he came to power, the far-right leader defended free access to firearms, citing the high rates of urban and rural crime.

Former Defense Minister Raul Jungmann (2016-2018) under then-President Michel Temer criticized Bolsonaro: “More rifles are more tragedy, it is more suffering, it is more conflict and it is not up to the President of the Republic to encourage the consumption of weapons and, above all, heavy weapons, due to the pain that this represents for Brazilians,” he said.

Bolsonaro had in July eliminated the 150% tax on Brazilian firearm exports to countries in Central and South America, while the Supreme Federal Court (STF) has annulled other measures towards the suppression of taxes on imported revolvers and pistols in mid-April this year, along with other decrees aimed at making the purchase and use of weapons easier in Brazil.

Making the carrying and possession of weapons more flexible is one of the campaign promises of the president, whose weapons model is that of the United States.

The number of new firearms registered in Brazil nearly doubled in 2020, from 94,416 in 2019 to 186,071 last year, according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum. This means an increase of 97.1%.

In total, last year there were more than 2 million active private firearms in Brazil, including hunters, collectors, sport shooters, private security, law enforcement and armed forces.

Regarding comments against him over the past few days, Bolsonaro explained that “some say I want a coup, they are idiots because I am already president.” He added that “our loyalty is with the people.”

Opposition leaders have criticized the President for the demonstrations called for September 7 against the Supreme Federal Court saying he wanted to encourage a climate of political and institutional instability. On that day Bolsonaro is to preside over the Independence Day celebrations in Brasília in the morning and São Paulo in the afternoon.

Far-right activists reportedly favor an invasion of Congress to then shut down the Supreme Court and create a Constitutional Military Court. They also want to invade the Chinese embassy in order to stop the spread of communism in the country. China is Brazil’s number one business partner.

But “our people do not go to the streets to prey on public assets or throw stones at the police, or invade anything,” Bolsonaro insisted, adding that the protests would be peaceful.

Mercopress

Fachin’s ruling upheld the Prosecutor-General’s Office (PGR) argument that the three former presidents no longer have special jurisdiction privileges, which means they can now be prosecuted in the ordinary lower and appeals court system rather than the Supreme Court.

Emílio Odebrecht, one of the owners of Odebrecht building corporation, said the company donated under the table to former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s presidential campaigns in 1993 and 1997. Cardoso will now be prosecuted in a federal court in São Paulo.

The accusations against former president Lula were remanded to a federal court in Paraná. Odebrecht whistleblowers mentioned alleged dealings with Lula to use his political influence to secure an interim presidential decree designed to avoid engaging the Prosecution Service in leniency deals struck by businesses in the Car Wash probe.

The whistleblowers went on to mention requests for Lula to pull the strings to secure contracts with the government of Angola for Odebrecht; the renovation, by Odebrecht, of a country house in Atibaia, São Paulo state, which allegedly belonged to Lula, and the hiring by Odebrecht of Lula Institute’s lectures in exchange for political favors.

Former president Dilma Rousseff was accused of receiving illegal donations for her election campaign. The allegations will be handled by a federal court in São Paulo.

The probe on former president, now Senator Fernando Collor de Mello will be handled by the Supreme Court because of Collor’s special jurisdiction privileges as a member of Congress. He is accused of receiving unreported donations from Odebrecht for his campaign to the Senate in 2010.

Cardoso declined to comment until he has access to the contents of the ruling. Lula’s counsel dismissed the whistleblowers’ allegations, maintaining he did not break any laws.

Rousseff’s campaign counsel said all donations received were reported to, and approved by, the Electoral Court. Collor’s lawyers declined to comment.

Odebrecht

Edson Fachin, the leading Justice in the Lava Jato case (Petrobras corruption), agreed to the investigations after accepting 83 different documents, presented by the Federal Prosecution Office based on plea bargain testimonies of 78 officials or former officials from Latin America’s largest construction group Odebrecht, which has admitted to a massive bribes network in Brazil and the region.

The list of names under investigation released by Justice Edson Fachin read like a Who’s Who of Brazilian politics, tarnishing past statesmen and potential presidential candidates alike.

The investigations refer to elected officials who under Brazilian law can only be judged by the Supreme Court. Ex presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff are not included in the so called Fachin List since they no longer hold elected posts and are not entitled to the special status.

Likewise current president Michel Temer has been excluded from the List since he enjoys “temporary immunity”, according to Justice Fachin, one of the eleven members which make up the Brazilian Federal Tribunal or Supreme Court. While in office the president can’t be charged for crimes not committed during his mandate.

The nine ministers in the List are: Eliseu Padilha and Wellington Moreira Franco, cabinet chief and deputy chief; Science and Technology Secretary Gilberto Kassab; Helder Barbalho, National Integration; Foreign minister Aloysio Nunes; Agriculture minister Blairo Maggi; Cities minister Bruno Araújo; Culture minister Roberto Freire and Marcos Pereira, Industry and Foreign trade minister.

The three state governors are Robinson Faria from Rio Grande de Norte; Tião Viana, Acre and Renan Vasconcelos Calheiros Filho, Alagoas.

The speakers of the Senate, Eunicio Oliveira and from the Lower House Rodrigo Maia are also in the Fachin List. Among the well known senators are Aécio Neves, president of PSDB, Temer’s main ally and the second most voted presidential candidate in 2014, and Romero Jucá, president of PMDB, the incumbent party.

The plea bargain system which has enabled to open the web of corruption in the political system, government suppliers and other companies obtained crucial information from Marcelo Odebrecht, heir of the construction group; Benedicto Junior, ex Head of Infrastructure; Alexandrino Alencar, head of Institutional Relations; Claudio Melo Filho, ex Institutional Relations; Jose Carvalho Filho, ex Institutional Relations.

The most frequent crimes allegedly committed are passive and active corruption; money laundering; fraudulent bids; forming cartels and public documents forging.

Apparently Attorney General Rodrigo Janot sent the Supreme Court last 14 March a total of 320 investigation requests, of which it declined competence on 211 since they did not involve elected or government officials, but were sent to ordinary courts.

When the news broke out, São Paulo residents banged pots and pans in protest against political corruption, while in the capital Brasília deputies left a session in the lower house earlier in the day as news of the list began to break.

The investigation into nine ministers, or nearly a third of the president’s cabinet, poses a serious threat to Temer’s efforts to pass deep austerity reforms that he says are needed to regain investor confidence and lift the economy out of its worst recession on record.

“More than having nine ministers on the list, the biggest problem for the government is seeing its whole political nucleus there,” said Danilo Gennari, partner with Brasília-based consultancy Distrito Relações Governamentais, referring to the implication of key government allies.

Among that core is Temer’s chief of staff Eliseu Padilha, an experienced politician considered key in negotiations with Congress to pass the administration’s crucial pension and other reforms. Likewise ministers in crucial areas such as foreign affairs, trade and agriculture.

“The political crisis will deepen and we risk an institutional paralysis because the entire Brazilian political system is under question,” opposition senator Jorge Viana, who is under investigation himself, said in a statement.

However aides close to Temer have said that it could take months for ministers to be charged, meaning Padilha and other key cabinet members likely will stay in their posts long enough to ensure the passage of reforms.

ABr/MP

A Federal court had determined on Monday that the child would be returned to him this Wednesday, June 3. A Supreme Court ruling, however, has voided the lower court decision, and Sean will now continue with his stepfather, João Paulo Lins e Silva, in Rio, for an indefinite time.

Supreme justice Marco Aurélio Mello took his decision in response to an emergency request made by senator Francisco Dornelles, the president of the obscure Progressive Party (PP), part of the ruling coalition that dominates Brazil.

Dornelles argued that the whole process was going too fast for the good of the boy, that the case had become over politicized and that Sean, being Brazilian, could not be "extradited." Sean was really born in the state of New Jersey, but he has dual citizenship, since his mother was Brazilian.

Sean's mother, Bruna Bianchi Carneiro Ribeiro, took the boy to Brazil when he was 4, for what should be a two-week vacation. But she never went back. She then married lawyer Lins e Silva.

Last year, Bruna died while giving birth to a child from her new husband. Even after her death, however, Lins e Silva kept the guardianship of the little boy, arguing that the child would not adapt to a life in the United States.

The Supreme Court's fast decision once again shows how powerful Lins e Silva and his family are in Brazil. Dornelles seems to have decided to interfere in the case only because he is a good friend of the Lins e Silvas. Now is the turn of Goldman's lawyer to appeal the Supreme decision.

Sean is the focus of a judicial dispute between Brazil and the United States, which has already reached the highest echelons in both governments. US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador in Brazil, Clifford Sobel, had pleaded in favor of Goldman. During his visit to Washington, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was also questioned by US president Barack Obama about the boy.

It's not clear how long will it take for the Brazilian Supreme Court to make a final decision in this case. Some believe that this will happen in two weeks. But others say that it might take several weeks or even months.

On Monday, Rio's federal judge Rafael Pereira Pinto had ruled that the Brazilian family had 48 hours to return Sean to the American Consulate in Rio, where Sean would be delivered to his father.

The lawyer for Lins e Silva, Sérgio Tostes, had filed his own petition, Monday night, before a Rio Regional Federal Court in an attempt to reverse the first ruling and prevent Sean from joining his father. The PP appeal was considered even before Tostes's request. The lawyer explained:

"The appeal that was considered by the Supreme was not mine. It was the one from the PP. This warrant is enough, however, to guarantee that Sean stay in Brazil until there is a trial in the Supreme. I was very pleased to hear about this decision."

Tostes believes that trial in the Supreme will happen within two weeks and says that he is confident that his side will end up winning the case.

The collision led to Brazil's worst air accident ever, which caused the death of the 154 passengers and crew aboard the plane when the Boeing fell in the Amazon jungle. The two pilots and the five passengers aboard the little jet were spared and were able to land safely in a Brazilian Air Force base airport.

The congressional inquiry is probing not only the Boeing tragedy but also the whole Brazilian air transportation system, which went into a state of chaos in several occasions since the plane accident over the Amazon.

According to Northfleet, who is the grand-daughter of an American confederate soldier who went to Brazil after the US Civil War, the cooperation agreement on penal matters between Brazil and the United States doesn't give the congressional committee the right to summon Americans to testify in Brazil.

"This is our main problem at the moment," complained representative Maia. "From a juridical point of view and from the agreements signed by Brazil with other countries, we have no guarantee that we can indeed hear the pilots."

The Supreme Chief suggested that the congressmen appeal to the Foreign Ministry of the Brazilian embassy in Washington to convince Lepore and Paladino to travel to Brazil. If everything fails the inquiry committee will try to fly to the US to get the American pilots testimony. Still another option would be to grill them via videoconferencing.

Just last Friday, Brazilian federal judge Murilo Mendes, from Mato Grosso, the state where the Boeing fell down, indicted the two Americans for involuntary manslaughter. Four Brazilian air controllers, all of them Air Force sergeants and all working at Brasí­lia's air control center, known as Cindacta 1, were also indicted by the same judge.

While three of the flight controllers are being charged with involuntary manslaughter, one of them is being accused of intentional manslaughter.

Judge Mendes determined that the pilots would be interrogated on August 27 and made it clear that they would have to travel to Brazil for that "not being allowed that the act occur at their native country – the United States."

In the court filing, prosecutor Thiago Lemos de Andrade stated that the negligence of the six men caused the collision between the Legacy and the Boeing. According to the charge, air controller Felipe Santos dos Reis gave wrong instructions to the American pilots, not telling them about the Legacy's altitude changes.

Jomarcelo Fernandes dos Santos, another air-controller indicted. was responsible for monitoring the area in which the Legacy jet was flying, about one thousand feet above the altitude it should be. Santos is accused of not alerting the US pilots about their wrong altitude.

More than that, the prosecutor says, Santos informed "consciously and willfully" the controller who took over from him that the jet was at 36 thousand feet of altitude feet, when actually it was at 37 thousand feet. Therefore, on the wrong way, since the odd altitude is reserved for planes coming to Brasí­lia and not going from Brasí­lia as it was the case.

Lucivando Tibúrcio de Alencar, the air controller who replaced Santos, was charged for taking too long to attempt a contact with the Legacy – about ten minutes after starting his shift – even though he was aware that the jet's transponder wasn't working properly. The last air controller charged was Leandro José Santos de Barros, Alencar's assistant.

Lepore and Paladino are being charged mainly for their use of the transponder and for not following the written flight plan. The prosecution says that both didn't know how to use the plane's equipment and that they ended up turning the transponder off unintentionally.

As the prosecution put it, "For not knowing how to operate some items in the plane, they ended up deactivating by mistake the transponder. To this momentary active ineptitude followed a long omissive negligence."

The penalty for involuntary manslaughter is from one to three years in jail, but aggravating factors might lead to up to six years in prison. As for willful manslaughter, as one air controller is charged, the penalty can vary from 8 to 24 years of detention.

Northfleet said she will give priority to expanding and strengthening the lower court magistracy – the so-called Common Justice – to provide all citizens easy access to a judge and to make sentences straightforward, comprehensible, and educational.

Gracie also urged the superior courts and the STF always to remain open to the discussion of issues of general applicability and to be more expeditious, especially when they have to rule on claims involving tax and social security questions.

"The two instruments, ‘stare decisis’ and general applicability, have the extraordinary potential to ensure that a single legal issue finally receives uniform treatment for all the interested parties.

"In a short time, therefore, we will achieve a solution to most of these lawsuits brought on a mass basis. And, by alleviating the excessive load represented by repetitious cases, the judiciary will be able to handle more speedily the individual cases that demand craftsmanlike treatment," she affirmed.

The new president of the STF recalled that it is up to her to guide the National Council of Justice and to seek to work in conjunction with the state, regional, and federal courts, the labor court system, the lower court justices, and all members of the legal profession.

"That is the only way we will turn the Council into the great center of Brazilian judicial thinking, to formulate policies and do the strategic planning of the institution we will bequeath to future generations," she remarked.

In her speech, the new president, who is replacing minister Nelson Jobim, also stated that she is fully aware of the symbolism of the unprecedented act of a woman’s assuming the presidency of the highest court of the land.

"I would like all women of this country to feel they are participating in this moment. They are all partaking in this day. My commitment, therefore, could be none other than to perform my functions to the limit of my capacity in order not to be unworthy of them."

Minister Northfleet was elected on March 15 to preside the Supreme Court for the two-year term 2006-2008. On the same occasion, the assembled court elected minister Gilmar Mendes as vice-president, also in a secret vote and without the right to be re-elected.

It is a tradition in the STF to grant the presidency and vice-presidency to the ministers who have served the longest on the court and have still not occupied these posts. The eleven members of the Supreme Court are appointed directly by the president of the Republic.

Agência Brasil