Supreme Court Justice rejects request to annul session that ousted Rousseff

Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavascki rejected this Thursday (Sep. 8) the injunction request to annul the Senate session that approved President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment. The request had been filed by former president's lawyer José Eduardo Cardozo on September 1 morning, only hours after senators cast their votes.

In the sentence ruled by Teori Zavascki, who had been randomly chosen to report the case, he said the request "lacked legal plausibility."

Rousseff was ousted by the Senate by 61 votes to 20, under charges of breaking budget laws when she enacted three supplementary credit decrees, not authorized by Congress, and also of using accounting tricks, like delays in payments to state-owned banks.

On the following morning, Cardozo filed an appeal to the Supreme Court for canceling the session. On the request, he had not questioned the merits of the senators' decision, but instead whether the impeachment trial was in compliance with the constitution, mentioning possible errors in the way it was conducted.

By rejecting the request, the justice was adamant. "Furthermore, it should be stated that the petitioner's defense had iterative opportunities to refute the prosecution's arguments," wrote Zavascki, adding that "during the interrogation phase, which lasted over 11 hours, the defendant responded to 48 questions from senators, many of which addressed the examination of the charged acts related to the country's fiscal policy."

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta

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