Supreme Federal Court Supremo Tribunal Federal
The Supreme Federal Court at the Praça dos Três Poderes
Jurisdiction	Brazil
Authorized by	Constitution of Brazil
Website	Official website
President
Currently	Carlos Ayres Brito

Brazil

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The Supreme Federal Court (Portuguese: Supremo Tribunal Federal, [suˈpɾẽmu tɾibuˈnaw fedeˈɾaw], also known as STF, IPA: [ˌɛsiteˈɛfi]) is the supreme court (court of last resort) of Brazil, serving primarily as the Constitutional Court of the country. It is the highest court of law in Brazil for constitutional issues and its rulings cannot be appealed. On questions involving exclusively lower legislation, the highest court is, by rule, the Superior Court of Justice.

Alongside its appeal competence, mostly by the Extraordinary Appeal (Recurso Extraordinário), the Court has a small range of cases of original jurisdiction, including the power of judicial review, judging the constitutionality of laws passed by the National Congress, through a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (Ação Direta de Inconstitucionalidade, or ADIn).

The judges of the court are called Ministers (Ministro), although having no similarity with the government body of ministers. They are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. There is a mandatory retirement age of 70.

All judicial and administrative meetings of the Supreme Court have been broadcast live on television since 2002. The Court is open for the public to watch the meetings.

In May 2009 The Economist called the Supreme Federal Court "the most overburdened court in the world, thanks to a plethora of rights and privileges entrenched in the country's 1988 constitution (...) till recently the tribunal's decisions did not bind lower courts. The result was a court that is overstretched to the point of mutiny. The Supreme Court received 100,781 cases last year."^[1]

History[link]

The court was inaugurated during the colonial era in 1808, the year that the royal family of Portugal (the House of Braganza) arrived in Rio de Janeiro. It was originally called the House of Appeals of Brazil (Casa de Suplicação do Brasil).

The proclamation of the Brazilian Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Imperial Constitution in 1824 preceded the establishment of the Supreme Court of Justice (Supremo Tribunal de Justiça) in 1829. With the first Constitution of the Republic, the current Court was established.

Although the constitutional norms that regulated the creation of the Court allowed Deodoro da Fonseca, Brazil's first president, to nominate an entirely new Court, the president chose to nominate as the first members of the Supreme Federal Court the ministers who were then serving as members of the predecessor imperial Court.

Two hundred members have served on the Court. The Constitution of 1891 decided that the Court would have 15 members. When Getúlio Vargas came into power, the number of members was reduced to 11. The number was changed to 16 in 1965, but returned to 11 in 1969 and has not changed since. Of all Presidents of Brazil, only one (Café Filho) never nominated a minister.

The Justice, by Alfredo Ceschiatti in the front of the Supreme Federal Court

President[link]

The President and Vice-president of the Court are elected by their peers for a term of two years by secret ballot. The currently serving President is Cezar Peluso.

Re-election for a consecutive term is not allowed. By tradition, the members of the Court always elect as president the most senior minister of the Court that has not yet served as President, to avoid politicization of the Court. Therefore, it is known beforehand that the next Presidents of the Court, after Cezar Peluso, will be, in order, Carlos Ayres Britto, Ricardo Lewandowski and Joaquim Barbosa.

If all members currently sitting on the Court have already served as president, the rotation starts all over again; however, due to the existence of a compulsory retirement age, and the consequent appointment of new ministers to fill those vacancies, it is very rare for the cycle to be completed and re-started, and some ministers are forced to retire before their turn in the presidency arrives.

According to the same convention, the Court selects as vice-president for a certain term the minister who, according to that tradition, will be selected president in the succeeding term. Also by tradition, the elections of the president and vice-president are never unanimous, there being always one isolated minority vote in each election, as the ministers who are to be elected never cast their votes for themselves; such votes are cast either for the Dean of the Court – its most senior member – or for some other elder minister that the one to be elected admires and wants to pay homage to.

Current members[link]

Name	Birth	Appointed by	First day	Mandatory retirement
Peluso, CezarCezar Peluso	01942-09-03September 3, 1942 (age &1000000000000006900000069) in Bragança Paulista, São Paulo	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02003-06-25June 25, 2003 (serving for 9 years)	02012-09-03September 3, 2012
Mello, Celso deCelso de Mello	01945-11-01November 1, 1945 (age &1000000000000006600000066) in Tatuí, São Paulo	Sarney, JoséJosé Sarney	01989-08-17August 17, 1989 (serving for 22 years, 10 months)	02015-11-01November 1, 2015
Aurélio, MarcoMarco Aurélio	01946-07-12July 12, 1946 (age &1000000000000006500000065) in Rio de Janeiro	Fernando Collor de Mello	01990-06-13June 13, 1990 (serving for 22 years)	02016-07-12July 12, 2016
Mendes, GilmarGilmar Mendes	01955-12-30December 30, 1955 (age &1000000000000005600000056) in Diamantino, Mato Grosso	Cardoso, Fernando HenriqueFernando Henrique Cardoso	02002-06-20June 20, 2002 (serving for 10 years)	02025-12-30December 30, 2025
Calos Ayres (President of the Court)	01942-11-18November 18, 1942 (age &1000000000000006900000069) in Propriá, Sergipe	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02003-06-05June 5, 2003 (serving for 9 years)	02012-11-18November 18, 2012
Barbosa, JoaquimJoaquim Barbosa (Vice-President of the Court)	01954-10-07October 7, 1954 (age &1000000000000005700000057) in Paracatu, Minas Gerais	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02003-06-25June 25, 2003 (serving for 9 years)	02024-10-07October 7, 2024
Lewandowski, RicardoRicardo Lewandowski	01948-05-11May 11, 1948 (age &1000000000000006400000064) in Rio de Janeiro	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02006-03-16March 16, 2006 (serving for 6 years, 3 months)	02018-05-11May 11, 2018
Lúcia, CarmenCarmen Lúcia	01954-04-19April 19, 1954 (age &1000000000000005800000058) in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02006-06-21June 21, 2006 (serving for 6 years)	02024-04-19April 19, 2024
Toffoli, DiasDias Toffoli	01967-11-15November 15, 1967 (age &1000000000000004400000044) in Marília, São Paulo	Lula da Silva, Luiz InácioLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva	02009-10-23October 23, 2009 (serving for 2 years, 8 months)	02037-11-15November 15, 2037
Fux, LuizLuiz Fux	01953-04-26April 26, 1953 (age &1000000000000005900000059) in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro	Dilma Rousseff, Dilma Rousseff	02011-03-03March 3, 2011 (serving for 1 year, 3 months)	02023-04-26April 26, 2023
Weber, RosaRosa Weber	01948-10-02October 2, 1948 (age &1000000000000006300000063) in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul	Dilma Rousseff, Dilma Rousseff	02011-12-19December 19, 2011 (serving for 6 months)	02018-10-02October 2, 2018

Gallery[link]

• 

  The Supreme Court in session.

• 

  The Brazilian Prosecutor-General, Roberto Gurgel, is the prosecutor of the Supreme Court and heads the Federal Ministério Público.

• 

  The Brazilian Solicitor-General, Luís Inácio Adams, is responsible for the legal defense of the federal government in Supreme Court cases, and heads the office of Attorneys-general at the federal level.

• 

  The Public Defender-General, José Rômulo Plácido Sales is the public defender in Supreme Court cases, and chief of federal public defenders.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• (Portuguese) Photo 360° of Supreme Federal Court - GUIABSB

See also[link]

• Brazil federal courts
• Tribunal de Justiça

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Coordinates: 15°48′11″S 47°51′40″W / 15.803°S 47.861°W / -15.803; -47.861

Federal court may refer to a court of the national government in a country that has a federal system of government. Examples include:

• United States federal courts
  • A particular federal court, such as the United States district courts.
• In some countries, a particular court, for example:
  • Federal Court of Australia
  • Federal Court (Canada)
  • Federal Court of India, existed from 1937 to 1950
  • Federal Court of Justice of Germany.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

José Dirceu.

José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒoˈzɛ dʒiʁˈsew]; b. Passa Quatro, Minas Gerais, March 16, 1946) is a Brazilian politician.

He participated in a revolutionary armed group following the Brazilian military coup of 1964, and was exiled in 1969. He returned in 1980 and was active politically, his highest post was as the chief-of-staff to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration from 2003 to 2005, when he resigned due to corruption charges. ^[1]

Early life[link]

Dirceu moved to São Paulo in 1961 and began his militancy by joining the "Ala Marighella" (later called the ALN) in 1966, a revolutionary armed group linked to the Brazilian Communist Party. In 1968 Dirceu, who was known as "Daniel", was the leader of the State Union of Students or UEE. As a consequence of his militancy in the student movement, Dirceu was arrested on October 12, 1968, during the 30th Congress of the National Student Union (UNE), in Ibiúna.

In 1969 the Marxist revolutionary groups MR8 and ALN abducted the US ambassador to Brazil Charles Burke Elbrick. The revolutionaries demanded the liberation of fifteen prisoners, including José Dirceu. This incident is the basis of the film Four Days in September.

After that he travelled to Cuba. While in exile, Dirceu worked, got military training and studied in the island. According to him, he changed his appearance through plastic surgery. Dirceu returned to Brazil in 1975 with the false name of "Carlos Henrique Gouveia de Mello". He married his first wife and lived in Paraná in total secrecy, with his true identity unbeknownst even to his wife, until 1979, when he returned to Cuba.

His official exile ended in 1980, after amnesty had been granted. Separated from his first wife, he married again, to the psychologist Ângela Saragosa and he assumed his real identity. The marriage with Ângela Saragosa came to an end in 1990. In 1991 he married his current wife, Maria Rita Garcia Andrade, an old friend from his militant days. He has three children.

Dirceu played an active role in the movement to grant amnesty to those tried for and convicted of political activities, as well as in the coordination of the Diretas Já campaign in 1984 in favor of direct presidential elections.

Political career[link]

With a law degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, he served as state deputy from 1987 to 1991 (SP-PT) and federal deputy from 1991 to 1995 (SP-PT) and, again, from 1999 to 2003 (SP-PT).

Dirceu held numerous posts in the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), of which he is one of the founders, including the presidency of the National Executive between 1995 and 1997. In 1989 he coordinated Lula's first presidential campaign for the party.

He exercised various parliamentary activities in municipal councils, state legislative assemblies, and the legislative chamber of the Federal District. Among them, he was a member of the Finance and Budget Commission and vice-president of the Public Safety Commission.

From January 1, 2003 until June 16, 2005, Dirceu was the chief-of-staff of President Lula (in Brazil, the chief-of-staff has a ministerial status similar to the British Cabinet Office). His departure is attributed to his purported knowledge of a corruption scheme in the legislative, the Mensalão scandal. Upon leaving the government, Dirceu resumed his roles as an elected congressman for the state of São Paulo. He was expelled from the Congress on November 30, 2005, accused of breaking the parliamentary decorum due to his involvement with the scandal. He cannot be elected to any executive or legislative positions until 2015. As of 2006, he practices in a law firm in Rio de Janeiro.

He is currently being prosecuted by the Republic General Attorney, accused of being the leader of the mensalão. He will be judged by the Supreme Federal Tribunal.

References[link]

Wikinews has related news: Brazil Political crisis: Minister José Dirceu leaves the government

• Minister José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva Pinto - Biographical Data (from Brazilian government)
• Dirceu, the radical wizard, Narco News
• Brazil's Congress suspended amid angry scenes, Reuters
• A profile of José Dirceu, based on an account published by Veja magazine, Brazzil magazine
• Alianca Libertadora Nacional (ALN), MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base
• Dirceu finally taken out of office