The plenary session of the upper house approved with 47 votes in favor and 32 against the appointment of Mendonça, who replaces the magistrate Marcos Aurelio Mello, who retired last July.
In this way, the STF will once again have its staff of 11 judges complete in the next few days.
The new magistrate assured legislators that he will adhere to the Constitution and not to his religious convictions, despite his status as a pastor since Bolsonaro had announced at the time that he would nominate someone “terribly evangelical.”
“In life, the Bible; in the STF, the Constitution,” Mendonça told the members of the Senate Constitution and Justice Commission, during the interrogation that he answered for several hours before the plenary session of the chamber voted on his appointment. .
“Although I am an evangelical, there is no space for religious public demonstrations during the sessions of the STF,” remarked the new magistrate, and assured that he will defend “the constitutional right of civil marriage of people of the same sex,” according to the AFP news agency.
Mendonça presided over the Attorney General of the Union (the body that judicially defends the interests of the State) from the first day of Bolsonaro’s government (January 1, 2019) until April 2020, and from then until March of this year he was minister of Justice.
Mendonça has been a member of Bolsonaro’s government since he came to power in January 2019, with the fundamental support of evangelicals, a sector on the rise in Brazil, where according to a Datafolha survey from January 2020 it already represents 31% of the population.
For the professor and public law lawyer Michael Mohallem, the approval of Mendonça is a victory, heading into the 2022 elections, for Bolsonaro.
The president defended his approval on Tuesday during his affiliation with the Liberal Party and at a dinner offered in his honor at the Palacio da la Alvorada, the official residence, together with the evangelical staff.
“His appointment is political. It allows him to retain the electoral support of the evangelicals and also a reading will be made that Bolsonaro still controls the majority in the Senate when he needs it.”Mohallem told AFP.
Born in Santos (Sao Paulo), Mendonça is a lawyer and has specialized in anti-corruption issues. Between April 2020 and March 2021 he was Minister of Justice and Public Security. He is pastor of the Esperança Presbyterian Church, located in Brasilia.
He is the second highest court judge appointed by Bolsonaro, after Kassio Nunes Marques in 2020.
Source From: Ambito
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