Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) has entered the 2026 campaign as both an institution under scrutiny and a political target. A growing trust crisis, fueled by the Banco Master scandal and by questions about the conduct of senior judges and their relatives, has pushed judicial reform into the center of the presidential debate.
The immediate backdrop is the widening Banco Master investigation. According to Metrópoles, the Federal Police have another month, barring a fresh extension, to deliver to Justice André Mendonça the inquiry into suspected irregularities in Banco de Brasília's proposed purchase of Master assets worth R$ 12.2 billion. Investigators are examining alleged fraudulent payroll-loan portfolios, suspected bribery, and asset-hiding structures tied to real-estate companies.
Ethics Under Pressure
The case has spilled beyond banking and into the court itself. Metrópoles reported that the broader controversy has drawn attention to ministers' links to people or entities connected to Master. The outlet cited questions involving Alexandre de Moraes, Dias Toffoli and Nunes Marques, while Revista Oeste reported Gilmar Mendes publicly praising the law firm of Viviane Barci, Moraes's wife, as "old" and "renowned" when asked about its contracts with Master.
Those reports do not by themselves prove wrongdoing by any justice. But politically, that is no longer the only point. The damage comes from the appearance of proximity, from overlapping personal, financial and institutional circles, and from the public impression that the court's internal boundaries have become too porous.
STF Chief Justice Edson Fachin has acknowledged the scale of the problem. In a speech cited by Metrópoles, he said the judiciary is living through an institutional crisis and warned that judges must respect limits, arguing that courts should not replace legislators, investigators or prosecutors. He also defended a form of institutional self-correction to restore public confidence.
Reform or Self-Protection
That is now the central dispute. One response would be to treat the crisis as a reason to remove suspect actors from sensitive cases, tighten conflict-of-interest rules, and reform the court in a way that clearly serves the public interest. Another response, increasingly visible in Brasília, is to build a broader support chain among those already entangled in the crisis, preserving influence while changing only the language around it.
That second path is what critics fear. Instead of isolating questionable relationships and cleaning up the institution, the temptation is to reorganize protection networks among political and legal insiders. In that reading, ethics codes and reform slogans risk becoming tools to stabilize the same circles now under suspicion, in a system that serves a visibly compromised elite rather than the nation.
The electoral reaction shows how far the issue has spread. Metrópoles reported that the Workers' Party (PT), Brazil's ruling center-left party, now defends judicial reform and a conduct code for top courts. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also said the Master scandal hurt the STF's image and argued that Moraes should recuse himself from Master-related cases. On the right, Romeu Zema and Flávio Bolsonaro have turned STF reform into explicit campaign themes, though with different remedies and rhetoric.
Why It Matters Now
This is no longer a narrow legal debate. It is a test of whether Brazil's institutions can still distinguish reform from coordinated self-preservation.
The STF does not need more language about credibility. It needs visible proof that the rules apply even when the people affected are powerful, connected and useful to one another. If reform becomes merely a way to regroup those involved, public distrust will deepen, and the 2026 campaign will treat the court less as a guardian of constitutional order than as another arena of elite bargaining.
Fonts: https://revistaoeste.com/politica/gilmar-elogia-escritorio-de-viviane-barci/ https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/crise-do-stf-e-reforma-do-judiciario-viram-pauta-das-eleicoes-de-2026 https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/compra-do-master-pelo-brb-pf-tem-1-mes-para-entregar-inquerito-ao-stf https://www.metropoles.com/sao-paulo/fachin-crise-no-stf-enfrentar
accessed on 25 April 2026