The Bolsonaro Trial Has Far-Reaching Consequences for Democracy

On Sept. 11, the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF) made one of the most important judgments in its history: It condemned former President Jair Bolsonaro and his military entourage for their attempted coup, which would have consolidated Bolsonaro’s power over Brazilian democracy. As straightforward as it may seem, the decision involves different constitutional, political, ethical, and historical layers that will affect the preservation of democracy far into the future—in Brazil and around the world.

Background

Bolsonaro’s hostility to the judiciary, and particularly the STF, has a long and persistent history, much of it relating to the case against current-President Lula da Silva, who was imprisoned in 2018 on allegations of corruption. In December 2018, Bolsonaro was reportedly enraged by a decision from one of the STF’s justices that could have freed Lula from jail. In 2019, the STF moved to nullify the case against Lula, finding the procedural move used to secure his conviction was made by a judge without jurisdiction. This last decision, in the end, freed Lula. According to Bolsonaro’s indictment, it was this STF ruling that forced the then-president and his supporters to confront the possibility of defeat by Lula in the presidential election, prompting the plot that led to the Jan. 8, 2023, attack on the Brazilian government.

The inquiry that led to Bolsonaro’s condemnation began in 2023 with investigations of misappropriation of gifts received by the Presidency of the Republic and falsification of vaccination cards. In those cases, a former aide-de-camp in Bolsonaro’s cabinet made a plea bargain agreement and accused the former president of embezzlement and other funding activities linked to the coup. The Federal Police of Brazil was able to collect WhatsApp conversations, messages, and other evidence that built a strong case against all the defendants. On Nov. 21, 2024, its agents, based on that evidence, indicted Bolsonaro and 33 co-conspirators.

Throughout Bolsonaro’s investigation and trial, one central figure led the charge: Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the STF. Moraes famously oversaw the “fake news inquiry,” a previous case aimed at collecting evidence of crimes against the court and its justices. The inquiry served partly as justification for the STF’s competence to rule in the current case, although the STF’s competence derives mainly from the fact that one of the defendants is a federal deputy: The 1988 Constitution, in its Article 102, number I, “b”, provides that federal representatives, if accused of crimes, shall be tried by the STF. These criminal complaints are filed by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in the STF, and distributed to a justice rapporteur. The court must confirm the complaint, guarantee due process to the defendants, and, in the end, provide a ruling.

The criminal complaint procedures against Bolsonaro and other defendants moved on to collect evidence and hearing testimonies, and to ensure that the president was subject to due process. The defendants were tried by the STF’s First Panel—made up of Justices Moraes, Flávio Dino, Luiz Fux, Cármen Lúcia, and Cristiano Zanin—rather than the full bench of 11 justices. At least 73 witnesses testified in September for a trial of six of the defendants, including Bolsonaro (the other defendants have yet to be tried). Cell phone conversations, a log of entries into and exits from the presidential building, and GPS tracking records were all used as evidence in the trial.

In Brazil, STF’s trials do not involve a jury. It was the duty of the five justices to decide on the defendants’ guilt. At the conclusion of the trial, the First Panel issued its ruling. The STF ultimately convicted the former president and top-echelon former aides in his government on charges of attempted criminal conspiracy, attempted abolition of the democratic rule of law, an attempted coup d’etat, violent destruction of private property, and damage to protected national heritage sites. Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison. 

Since Brazil overthrew its monarchy in 1889, the country has experienced several coups and coup attempts with links to the military. Bolsonaro’s trial marks the first time the leader of a coup attempt in the country has been convicted. 

The Ruling

The ruling began with Justice Moraes’s opinion as the rapporteur, which meticulously laid out Bolsonaro’s coup attempt step by step. After reviewing the evidence, Moraes found that Bolsonaro definitively used government resources to monitor political adversaries and attack the Electoral Justice (the body responsible for overseeing elections in Brazil). The president also unduly used the armed forces to produce a report on the oversight of electronic voting. In his opinion, Moraes cited several of Bolsonaro’s interviews and broadcasts in which he threatened electoral tribunals and spread misinformation about the validity of electronic ballots. He also mentioned Bolsonaro’s 2021 speech attacking the STF and Justice Moraes, in which Bolsonaro made promises not to obey any judicial ruling.

Moraes also found that, in 2022, Bolsonaro held a cabinet meeting (the recording of which was entered into evidence before the court) in which he and his aides detailed his suspicions about the election results and discussed possible scenarios for governance in the aftermath of a coup. The objective was to gather support from his ministers and the armed forces’ commanders. In the same month, Bolsonaro convened ambassadors to spread misinformation about the electronic ballots. In the second round of the presidential elections, the Federal Highway Police, under the instructions of Bolsonaro’s minister of justice, blocked roads in the northeastern region of the country, where Lula’s electoral base is concentrated. 

Moraes’s opinion also highlighted Bolsonaro’s deployment of the armed forces to carry out a plot to assassinate Moraes himself. After the election results, special forces of the army were gathered to kidnap and kill Moraes. While precise details were not mentioned, the plot was uncovered using GPS tracking records that showed that members of special forces abandoned the assassination plan only because Moraes changed his route on the day of the attempted murder.

There were also violent acts in Brasília at the time of the elections’ certification and an attempt to place a bomb in the city’s airport, all of them planned by Bolsonaro’s supporters. Cementing Bolsonaro’s guilt, the Federal Police also found drafts of a post-coup speech and the declaration of a state of emergency that he presented to chiefs of the armed forces and planned to deliver to the public after the successful coup. Commanders of the army and air force refused to cooperate with the president and testified to the Federal Police that they rejected the plan, against the navy commander’s orders. The culmination of the coup d’etat was the Jan. 8, 2023, attack on Brazilian government buildings and Bolsonaro’s plans to create a crisis cabinet to take power.

The description of that chain of events provided in the Federal Police’s inquiry supported the STF’s invocation of Articles 359-L and 359-M of Brazil’s Criminal Code, which criminalize attacks on democracy. The provisions describe crimes of attempting to restrict the functioning of the other branches of power and to topple a legitimately elected government. These attempts, according to Justice Moraes, were not isolated acts, but part of an overarching strategy that the court had to prove. Demonstrating that strategy formed an integral part of the arguments the STF developed in its case law to sanction the defendants who stormed Brasília in more than 500 cases and that, in the end, supported the condemnation of Bolsonaro and his allies. 

Justices Dino, Cármen Lúcia, and Zanin joined Moraes in the panel’s majority. Their opinions depicted the importance of the ruling for strengthening Brazilian democracy. They argued that in Brazil’s history of coups, accountability has often been lacking, emphasizing its importance in the present case. In his opinion, Justice Dino took the opportunity to declare that crimes against democracy cannot be amnestied. Although the 1988 Constitution does not directly veto amnesties for crimes against democracy, he suggested that there is an implicit constitutional rule that precludes amnesty for those who threaten democracy. This was a clear message to Brazilian legislators—many of whom are already considering amnesty for Bolsonaro and other defendants (discussed further below). 

Justice Fux issued the only dissenting opinion. His arguments mostly parroted the narrative presented by far-right extremist supporters of Bolsonaro. He suggested that the STF had no competence to try the former president and that, even if it did, the case should have been brought before the full bench, not just the First Panel. Consequently, Fux claimed, the entire case against Bolsonaro should be nullified. (Notably, Fux had never previously questioned the court’s competences.) Fux even went so far as to deny that people stormed Brasília—a fact that not even the defendants had contested. Fux depicted the events of Jan. 8, 2023, as a “disorderly mob” and not as an event connected to the alleged plot Bolsonaro may have had to overthrow the government.

Fux also harshly criticized Justice Moraes for supervising part of the investigations: He declared that no judge should be an inquisitor. Rather than blaming Bolsonaro, Fux’s dissent condemned two military officers for the coup attempt: Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp and former chief-of-staff minister.

Regardless, in the end, the majority of the STF’s First Panel condemned Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years and 3 months of jail time. Several high-echelon military personnel were condemned, on average, to 20 years in prison. All of them will be subject to proceedings in military tribunals that will likely strip them of their ranks. 

Domestic Implications

This is a landmark case for Brazilian democracy. After developing a democratic constitution in 1988, the country’s institutions have survived two impeachments of its presidents (1993 and 2016), an enduring political crisis between 2015 and 2018, and—with Bolsonaro’s term—the most illiberal government of the modern era. Brazil’s history is filled with coups or coup attempts followed by amnesties that created the custom of immunizing members of the armed forces from accountability. The last Amnesty Law, which also aimed at granting amnesty for crimes committed by military officers, was validated with this interpretation by the STF in 2010. In this context, to hold members of the armed forces guilty (including a former one, Bolsonaro) for attempting a coup is a milestone ruling.

Extreme far-right politicians in Brazil, however, are unlikely to cease their efforts to prevent Bolsonaro from serving time. Given that Bolsonaro is the figurehead of the far-right movement, the symbolism of his imprisonment may affect political support. Consequently, a number of amnesty bills are circulating in the National Congress. Some include all the defendants in Bolsonaro’s case plus the ones who stormed Brasília. Others are only reviews of prison terms. On Sept. 18, the Chamber of Deputies decided that these bills should be decided in expedited procedures. Popular outcry that burst into street protests on Sept. 21, however, may restrain the passage of such bills, as the legislative branch may not want to risk clashing with wider society’s views on the matter.

It is also worth noting that various Bolsonaro supporters expressed excitement about Justice Fux’s dissenting opinion. Considering Fux’s reasoning, there is a possibility that the case could be reviewed once again by another composition of the STF—and potentially nullify the judgment against Bolsonaro. The main argument for nullification rests on the STF’s supposed absence of competence (which was the reasoning behind Lula’s reviewing decision). The prospects remain uncertain, and depend largely on the court’s future composition—a factor tied to next year’s presidential election and the scheduled retirement of two justices between 2026 and 2030.

For many, this ruling—in combination with Justice Moraes’s ruling banning the social media platform X in the country and the ongoing fake news inquiry—cemented him as a protagonist in the Brazilian judiciary. This may pose a challenge the STF will have to confront: The growing concentration of power in Moraes’s hands. While his rulings are largely upheld by both the First Panel and the full bench, the court as an institution must stand above the protagonism of individual justices.

Justice Roberto Barroso, the STF’s chief justice, declared that the last day of the trial marked the end of “cycles of backwardness.” From a historical point of view, this is a potentially dangerous conclusion. The judgment, while extremely important, does not undo the problems of civil-military relations, elitist courts, pork-barrel politics, staggering inequality, and more, which are deeply embedded within Brazilian politics and government. The end of the trial also does not rein in the absence of democratic and constitutional values in government, which has been constantly tested and exploited by far-right parties and politicians. This is really only the beginning. 

International Repercussions

The ruling serves as a reminder to the international community that judicial institutions, which are not elected and are more indirectly shaped by politics, can—if not already compromised—serve as a bulwark against attacks on democracy. There are plenty of examples of their importance in acting responsively to assaults on democracy’s core. Rules on the protection of democracy can be seen across different jurisdictions, including Germany, the United States, Argentina, and France. What makes Brazil unique from many other Latin American countries in this case, however, was the STF’s ability to act promptly and without the fear of reprisals.

That said, in response to the ruling, Brazil is bracing for sanctions from the United States beyond the already-established tariffs, application of the Magnitsky Act, and the revocation of visas of the STF’s justices. President Trump reportedly said he was “very unhappy” about Bolsonaro’s conviction. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. is planning to “respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

As President Lula wrote in the New York Times, the tradition of a peaceful and profitable relationship between Brazil and the United States has been superseded by Trump’s distorted view of Brazilian politics. But President Trump’s own narrative of perceived political persecution clearly aligns with Bolsonaro’s alleged grievances. After all, Trump was at the center of his own alleged coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, and subsequent investigations. And Trump, like Bolsonaro, was put on trial and convicted of his own crimes—for charges unrelated to the coup attempt, but nevertheless crimes—in the United States. But unlike Bolsonaro—for now—he rose to power once again.

Bolsonaro’s conviction is not likely to put an end to the country’s current state of uncertainty and instability, as well as the threat of backlash and further erosion of the rule of law. In Brazil, there are powerful forces in both houses of Congress pressing for amnesty for Bolsonaro’s offenses and actually supporting Trump’s interference in Brazil’s municipal affairs. However, these attempts may backfire, giving rise to a more focused and electorally appealing discourse on defense of sovereignty by the Brazilian government. Lula’s nationalist rhetoric could counter Bolsonaro’s electoral ambitions, given that the right-wing electorate traditionally claimed to promote patriotism and traditional values. Nationalism can be particularly powerful in a time when the world’s most powerful nation is trying to put pressure on the judiciary and on other institutions to leave democratic attacks unpunished.

One thing is clear: The importance of Bolsonaro’s trial goes far beyond the decision itself. The awareness of the importance of democracy and the value of the rule of law is at stake, and the court took a major step to enhance its institutions and constitutional structure. But Bolsonaro still enjoys support in Congress and from radicalized supporters whom he was able to mobilize—and Brazil’s long history of authoritarianism could haunt its democratic future. The 1988 Constitution enabled the longest period of continuous democracy in Brazilian history, with over three and a half decades. Preserving this inherited democratic framework is the country’s most important challenge and lesson—one that, if successful, can be taught to the rest of the world.