By 8 votes to 3, Brazil's Supreme Court decided on Thursday (15) to annul the condemnations of former President Lula (PT) and return the PT's political rights.
Justices Edson Fachin, Ricardo Lewandowski, Gilmar Mendes, Rosa Weber, Alexandre de Moraes, Dias Toffoli, Cármen Lúcia and Luís Roberto Barroso voted in this regard.
Appointed by President Jair Bolsonaro (no party), Justice Kassio Nunes Marques disagreed and defended the reversal of Fachin's decision. Justices Marco Aurélio and Luiz Fux followed the same line.
The magistrates who aligned themselves with Fachin agreed that the actions against Lula were not just about Petrobras and that the jurisdiction of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba concerned itself only with processes directly linked to the state oil company.
Justices still have to decide whether the cases need to be sent to the Federal Court of the Federal District or São Paulo.
Lula, 75, had been convicted in two criminal cases, for corruption and money laundering, in the cases of the Guarujá (SP) triplex and the Atibaia (SP) site.
Thus, with Fachin's decision ratified by the Supreme Court, the convictions that removed Lula's political rights have no more effect and he can run for office in the next election, in 2022.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon