Fachin suspends judgment on Mendonça's conduct in Master case at Supreme Court
The Supreme Court president removed from the agenda the proceedings on Minister André Mendonça's performance as rapporteur in the Master case, amid an institutional crisis at the Court.
Supreme Court in crisis: Fachin suspends analysis of Mendonça's conduct in Master case
Minister Edson Fachin, president of the Supreme Court (STF), removed from the agenda of the plenary session on Wednesday (23) the judgment of a request for investigation into Minister André Mendonça's performance as rapporteur in the Master case, as reported by brasildefato.com.br.
The decision was taken last Thursday, following the extraordinary session on Tuesday (15), when the STF's dean, Minister Gilmar Mendes, raised a matter of order during the judgment on whether or not to open an investigation into the alleged connection between Minister Alexandre de Moraes and former banker Daniel Vorcaro, former owner of Banco Master.
The Master case is associated with Operation Compliance Zero, conducted by the Federal Police (PF), which investigates corruption of public officials and supposed billion-real financial frauds committed by Vorcaro.
Gilmar Mendes argued that the two investigation requests — the one involving Moraes and the one involving Mendonça — are related and should be analysed together. The plenary began voting on the proposal, but the judgment was interrupted by a request for examination by Minister Flávio Dino, when the vote stood at 4 to 3 in favour of separate judgments.
In justifying the removal from the agenda, Fachin cited the "direct relationship" between the proceedings on Mendonça and the matter raised in the order. "The inclusion on the agenda will be redesignated in due course," wrote the Supreme Court president.
It is worth noting that it was Fachin himself who had scheduled both judgments for nearby dates: the Moraes case for the extraordinary session on Tuesday, and Mendonça's for the 23rd. Last week, Fachin had already denied a request from Minister Moraes for the two proceedings to be considered together. Moraes argues that the analysis of possible deviations in Mendonça's rapporteurship has a direct effect on his own case.
The institutional crisis at the STF began when Mendonça, in his capacity as rapporteur of the Master case, lifted the confidentiality, on 1 September, of a Federal Police report containing 52 messages that investigators claim were sent by Vorcaro to Moraes. In the messages, Vorcaro appears to have a close relationship with Moraes, to whom he allegedly forwarded for appraisal a copy of a 131-million-real contract between Master and the law office of Viviane Barci de Moraes, the minister's wife.
In another part of the messages, the former banker appears to seek information about an imminent police operation to arrest him. The exchanges occurred between 2023 and 17 November 2025, the date when Vorcaro was effectively arrested. The responses from the other party could not be recovered by investigators.
In the plenary session on Tuesday, Moraes reiterated that he never maintained dialogue with Vorcaro and questioned the authenticity of the supposed messages, suggesting they could have been deleted before being viewed. During the session, the minister exchanged accusations with Mendonça, to whom he attributed having requested the inclusion of his name in any eventual plea bargain by Vorcaro for political motivations. Mendonça rejected the accusation, describing it as false.
Source: Google News BR — Crime