Brazil’s Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), the country’s highest court for non‑constitutional matters, has a new president who downplayed the impact of regulating judges’ participation in public events as a means to speed up the judiciary. Luis Felipe Salomão, who assumed the STJ presidency in August 2026, told Folha de S.Paulo that such rules are far from the issue that would boost productivity and efficiency in the courts.
Limits of event rules
Salomão noted that the Lei Orgânica da Magistratura (LOM) already contains guidelines for judicial conduct in both public and private life to prevent conflicts of interest. While updating those rules might be worthwhile, he doubted it would make the justice system work better, reduce bureaucracy or avoid excessive costs.
He pointed to a proposal by Supreme Federal Court (STF) and National Justice Council (CNJ) President Edson Fachin, which sets specific rules for judges’ event participation, gift acceptance and private activities, and advocates a judicial ethics code. Salomão said judges attend lectures and conferences to exchange experiences and overcome the “encastelamento” of the profession, but stressed that this does not compromise their impartiality in cases.
Calls for broader reform
The STJ chief argued that the real bottlenecks lie elsewhere. He dismissed talk of impeaching ministers as mere rhetoric that does not tackle relevant problems such as the sluggish pace of justice, noting that families sometimes wait eight or nine years for a simple claim to be resolved.
With a polarized electoral campaign underway, Salomão lamented that the judiciary has become a campaign talking point, accusing candidates of using the Court as an electoral platform to distort reality for campaign slogans. He called for avoiding extremism that changes nothing.
Defending court conduct
Salomão defended the STJ’s swift action in the sexual harassment case against Minister Marco Buzzi, who was removed from office by his peers in August 2026. He said the tribunal acted with the care the case required, guaranteeing the right to defense, and that delaying the decision would have worsened the situation for the court, the complainants, the minister and his family.
Regarding investigations into alleged vote‑selling within the STJ—still open concerning Ministers Moura Ribeiro and Buzzi—Salomão said no evidence points to ministerial involvement. He added that the probes revealed internal vulnerabilities, prompting the court to improve audit and traceability mechanisms for staff who access vote drafts and decisions.
Push for diversity and compliance
He acknowledged that irregularities among Brazil’s over 18 000 judges are rare and punished severely when they occur, noting most judges work weekends to keep up with their caseloads.
On remuneration, Salomão agreed that past excesses in judges’ salaries—so‑called supersalários—had been curtailed by the Supreme Court, but warned that comparing judicial pay to the minimum wage is not a meaningful debate.
The STJ president also urged closer dialogue with the STF on points of conflict, such as limits on home searches and sentence enforcement.
He said a upcoming reform will require joint discussions with the presidential palace and the new Congress after the 2026 elections, focusing on efficiency: "Can a dispute over a property or an inheritance be resolved in a reasonable time?"
Salomão highlighted the STJ’s “relevance filter,” set to take effect on September 3, 2026, which will allow only appeals with broad societal impact to be heard by the court, aiming to cut a backlog that grew to 700 000 cases in the last year, averaging one decision every seven minutes.
On diversity, he noted that of the 31 STJ ministers, only six are women and Black justices represent about 3 % of the bench, according to CNJ data. Salomão said he will urge colleagues to weigh gender and race when recommending vacancies to the president, though final appointments depend on the executive and legislature.
Finally, he announced plans to hire specialists for a compliance directorate that, together with a ministerial committee, will oversee transparency of the court’s internal artificial intelligence systems, insisting that human supervision remains indispensable.