Lula himself confirmed to journalists that he proposed Zanin, an intention that he had anticipated as soon as he took office as president, and said that will be “a great magistrate”not only for the work he did in his defense, but also for his “qualities as a lawyer,” reported the G1 news portal.
Lula’s proposal will be submitted in the coming weeks for analysis and voting in the Senate and, if approved, Zanin will join the country’s highest court to fill the vacancy opened last April, when the magistrate retired Ricardo Lewandowski and the Court was left with ten of its eleven members.
Who is Cristiano Zanin?
Zanin, 47, graduated in 1999 from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo and is specialized in civil law, although he also has a solid background in constitutional matters and procedural law.
He also has extensive experience in business litigation and in recent years he has studied and denounced the abusive use of legal mechanisms such as “lawfare” or judicial war, of which he maintained in his role as defender that the current president was a victim.
For a decade he has been Lula’s personal lawyer and exercised his defense in the various cases of corruption that he faced in the framework of Operation Lava Jato, which put dozens of politicians and businessmen in jail for fraudulent contracts with the Petrobras company and other state companies.
How was the defense that freed Lula from prison?
Lula was sentenced in the second instance and spent 580 days in jailfor which he was excluded from the 2018 elections, for which he emerged as the candidate with the highest voting intentions, and which finally consecrated Jair Bolsonaro, located on the extreme right of the political map, as president.
In 2019 the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) regained his freedom, based on Zanin’s work before the Supreme Courtwhich finally established jurisprudence and decided that, according to the Constitution, a convicted person should only be sent to jail once all appeal possibilities have been exhausted.
Two years later, Lula’s lawyer also convinced the Supreme Court that the trials in which he was convicted had been marred by various irregularities, for which reason they were annulled and the progressive leader recovered all his political rights.
The annulment of these processes opened up Lula the doors of a new candidacy for last year’s elections, in which he prevailed over Bolsonaro and managed to return to power for a third term.
In the next weeks, zanin He must be summoned for an interview in the Constitution and Justice Commission of the Senate and, if approved, his appointment will be submitted to the plenary session of the Upper House.
One of the members of the Senate is the former judge Sergio Morowho was responsible for Operation Lava Jato in the first instance and handed down the first sentences against Lula, later annulled due to irregular maneuvers by the then magistrate, accused of not having maintained due “impartiality” in the processes.
Moro, who after imprisoning Da Silva was Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister, has already announced that he will oppose Zanin’s appointment because that nomination hurts some “republican principles” due to his “public and manifest friendship” with the current president.
Source: Ambito
