Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, known as the STF, is again facing a familiar question: how long can one justice keep a national law from being judged by the full court?
According to a column by Andreza Matais in Metrópoles, Justice Cármen Lúcia has held up for 13 years the oldest pending preliminary injunction at the STF. The case concerns Law No. 12,734 of 2012, approved by Congress to change how Brazil distributes royalties from oil and natural gas production.
In March 2013, Cármen Lúcia issued a single-justice decision suspending several parts of the law. The measure blocked a new distribution model that would have reduced the share paid to producing states — mainly Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo and São Paulo — from 26.25% to 20%. At the same time, it would have increased the share for non-producing states and municipalities from 8.75% to 40%.
The policy dispute is real. Producing states argue that they bear the direct economic and environmental burden of oil extraction. Non-producing states argue that offshore natural resources belong to the federation and that revenues should be shared more broadly. That is precisely why the issue belongs before the full court, not indefinitely inside one justice’s office.
Metrópoles reports that the case has been scheduled for plenary review before, only for Cármen Lúcia to withdraw it repeatedly. The stated reason was the possibility of a federal agreement among the interested states. But, according to the column, no such agreement materialized.
The delay became harder to justify after 2022, when then-chief justice Rosa Weber ordered all active preliminary injunctions to be sent to the full court within 90 business days. On the final day of that deadline, June 14, 2023, Cármen Lúcia sent the royalties case to the court’s conciliation unit, avoiding immediate plenary review. Metrópoles says there was no record of meaningful progress toward a settlement before the case returned to the docket in March 2026.
The next attempt to bring the matter to a vote is scheduled for May 6, under Chief Justice Edson Fachin. The column reports that Cármen Lúcia is inclined to ask for another postponement.
This is not a technical footnote. When Congress passes a law, one justice suspends it, and the full court waits 13 years to decide whether that law is constitutional, the practical result is not judicial review. It is judicial substitution. The law on the books no longer governs; the interim order does.
The broader problem is institutional. Brazil’s courts often justify delay in the language of caution, dialogue or conciliation. Those tools can be useful. But when they become a way to prevent final judgment, they distort the legal order and show disrespect for the public that must live under it. Citizens, states and municipalities deserve rules that are clear, reviewable and timely.
Metrópoles also links this pattern to Cármen Lúcia’s role at the Superior Electoral Court, the TSE. The column says she took two years to schedule a case that could lead to the removal of former Roraima governor Antonio Denarium and his deputy, after convictions by the regional electoral court for misuse of public machinery to buy votes. It also says another electoral case, involving Rio de Janeiro governor Cláudio Castro, took four years to be voted on, including two years stalled at the TSE.
This article is based on single-source reporting by Metrópoles. The facts therefore should be read as attributed to that outlet. But if the timeline reported is accurate, the principle is plain: no democracy should allow temporary judicial orders to become a parallel legislature by inertia.
accessed on 28 April 2026