Placing the Judiciary Branch against wall due to decisions that may displease the public opinion put us into the unacceptable condition of hostages to something that overturns the reason of being of the Judiciary Branch in a democratic society. If judge, of whatever instance, has to make decision according to public outcry, we will have not the application of Right with its principles, but a lynching. For those who imagine that this is a democratic manner of making justice, it should be mentioned that this is the Nazi ideal, according which “Right is what is valuable to people´s interest” (Gilmar Mendes, Folha de S.Paulo, October 24, 93). It is not a coincidence that insistence to fight crime should be made according to the law and in strict compliance with the due legal proceeding. Otherwise, it will remain the authoritarianism of whom considers to be interpreter of “people´s interest”.

Currently, in the recent episode of the judgment of Boi Barrica Operation, after renamed Faktor Operation, the fact that the STJ has considered undue the breach of confidentiality and wiretapping was how much was enough to start the same campaign of demoralization of the Court. Some people pointing out the decision against the opinions of the Federal Prosecution Office and the work of the Federal Police, and others, more seriously, casting suspicion concerning the good standing of the judgment and the judge to say absurdities as the judge-rapporteur´s, minister Sebastião Reis, took advantage of the absence of two tenured ministers to judge. Some and others should be warned that police´s work is not unquestionable. To the contrary, is submitted to the severe criticism. Interestingly, nobody notices that STJ, once again, issued the nullity of interceptions issued at the beginning of the investigations, contradicting the law. Actually, the decision of the Ministers was criticized exactly for its best features: the compliance with the law, which reserves to interceptions the exceptional nature, establishing its use when no other form of investigation can be adopted. In Brazil, however, judges of first instance, in many opportunities, disregard this principle, and the superior Courts are entitled to reestablish the law.

In the case, as generally happens, the null act did not come from the police, but the judge(s) who granted invasive measures, in non-compliance with the legal rules. Furthermore, the Judiciary Branch is not related to opinions of the Public Prosecution Office that, as the defense, only files suits against someone. Otherwise, we would not need the judges. As to the good standing of the judgment by STJ, it should be pointed out that two tenured ministers considered themselves impeded to make part of the judgment. Therefore, the judge-rapporteur of habeas corpus did not “take advantage” of the absence of the colleagues to judge, and was not filed with the Court by the person interested in the judgment.

It has been becoming exhausting to determine that to each episode in which is rendered a decision that is not punitive, a smear campaign against the judge of the case is started. Only for the record, right after the granting of the first preliminary injunction in the case of Navalha Operation, the then president of the Federal Supreme Court, minister Gilmar Mendes, was the focus of a coward and sordid attack: a leakage rendered him as involved in the case. In Têmis Operation, in which the minister Félix Fux, currently vice-president of the Superior Court of Justice, giving example that it is possible to investigate, without necessarily arrest, was reached, demonstrates the level of perversity that we reached, when ‘daring’ to displease the Federal Police.

It is perfectly possible and legitimate to criticize judicial orders, whatever is the level. However, inadmissible is the disqualification of judges and courts when taking decisions that do not follow the popular will. Not succumb to the requests of a type of criminal populism that tries to exhaust the legitimacy of the criminal jurisdiction of people´s will, represents the highlight of the reason of being of the independent Judiciary in a constitutional democracy. It is true that STJ´s criminal precedents sometimes may disappoint us, but it is honestly innovative and committed to the constitutional values of protection to individual and human dignity.