The proposal to expand the number of STF (Supreme Federal Court) justices, taken over by President Jair Bolsonaro, comes up against the general understanding that changing the composition of the court contravenes an immutable clause in the Constitution, which cannot be modified by an amendment by the Legislature.
The intention to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices has already been the subject of PECs (proposed amendments to the Constitution) to Congress in the last decade but never advanced.
Scholars of constitutional law and retired Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello points out that the interference suggested by the president's allies in the Judiciary, in addition to being autocratic, could allow the norm in this sense to be invalidated, due to disrespect towards the separation of powers.
Mello said that Bolsonaro's intent has the "perverse and unconstitutional purpose of controlling the Supreme Federal Court and compromising the degree of full and necessary independence that magistrates and judiciary bodies must possess".
"Direct interference by the Executive or Legislature to increase or decrease the number of seats on the Supreme Court is an autocratic measure", says Georges Abboud, professor of Constitutional Law at PUC-SP. "Constitutional amendment in this sense contradicts the immutable clause of separation of powers and can be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Federal Court."
Translated by Cassy Dias