‘Lava Jato also aimed to enrich its

Lawyer and activist from Paraná, member of the Collective Lawyers and Lawyers for Democracy, Tânia Mandarino has been critical of the method, principles and practices of Operation Lava Jato for years. In 2017, she even organized the Lava Jato People’s Court, a popular court already at the time questioning the method of former judge Sergio Moro and the prosecutors of the Operation Lava Jato task force.

In an interview with Brazil in fact Paraná, Mandarino analyzes the removal of judge Gabriela Hardt, by the National Justice Inspectorate (CNJ). Hardt is being investigated for having endorsed the creation of the Lava Jato foundation, which would be financed with resources from Petrobras.

For Mandarino, alongside the political persecution that affected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva himself, Lava Jato sought to advance personal enrichment and political favoritism: “The enrichment of its members, also with political objectives of empowering themselves, of financing their campaigns , to stop being prosecutors and judges and become agents through capital, which is facilitated by our representative system, gathering sufficient resources to pay for each vote”, he states.

However, for now, the analyst is cautious when observing the facts of this Monday (15): “This is just a precautionary removal for a long and time-consuming disciplinary administrative process (PAD), in which everything can go according to the winds that may blow.”

Brasil de Fato Paraná. What is the meaning, in your opinion, of the removal of Hardt and 3 other prosecutors from the TRF-4?

Tania Mandarino. This precautionary leave while administrative disciplinary proceedings (PADS) are being responded to certainly has a meaning. It may not be as broad a meaning as we would like or as we expect it to be, or as justice would actually demand, but it means that some response the judiciary or its supervisory body, which is the CNJ, must give society regarding all the frauds and crimes that were committed in Lava Jato. If they are just sacrificing some to be able to hide much bigger things, only History will tell us over time.

Is this a clear sign that proves that the Lava Jato operative only served the purpose of political persecution?

The signal had actually been given a long time ago and what happened now was just a response to what society was expecting with everything that had already been signaled.

Lava Jato’s purpose was not only political persecution, which seems to have really fulfilled its role, but also hidden economic-financial purposes, on the one hand, to cause bankruptcy in Brazil and, on the other, to enrich its members, also with political objectives of empowering themselves, financing their campaigns, stopping being prosecutors and judges and becoming agents through capital, which is facilitated by our representative system, gathering sufficient resources to pay for each vote.

The operation was designed to expand dominance. Once the legal phase was exhausted, the parliamentary phase would come. So we see a financial issue being monitored very rigorously and we also want everything that was done in relation to political persecution to have equally consequences for whoever it hurts.

Deltan Dallagnol and Hardt planned to create a private foundation to place and access supposed “recovered” resources from public money from Petrobras. Does a case like this show where corruption in Brazil comes from? This is because the business media continues to wear down Petrobras, as if the irregularity were part of the company’s state character.

The imperialist motto at the time was corruption (now it is freedom of expression); Someone has said in the past that corruption is fascism’s greatest soap. The extraordinary correction demonstrates this collusion in Lava Jato, this planning between Dallagnol and Hardt, but both are just actors in a project that involves many more people.

It clearly demonstrates that the premise of combating corruption was to falsify the acts of the corrupt people who ran the operation. The business media continues to wear down Petrobras and we also have to be careful with the judiciary in this relationship that has not ended yet.

Firstly because, for now, it is just a precautionary departure for a long and time-consuming PAD in which everything can go according to the winds that may blow. Barroso, when defending Gabriela Hardt, whom he called “this girl”, the other day at the CNJ, has already shown that he also does not consider the request for approval of the agreement made by the prosecutors very serious because they could “be mistaken in the era”.

So the judiciary, and not just the business media, can also continue to wear down Petrobras. I don’t know if this will happen or not, if it’s a trend or not, but at least there are signs that we already have at least one minister in the STF thinking like this. In bourgeois democracy, obviously the judiciary is also – and legal security fluctuates a lot with the winds.

Source: BdF Paraná

Editing: Mayala Fernandes