We should welcome Brazil’s Supreme Court decision to order former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to prison. That is, if we care about the rule of law and Brazil’s opportunity to become a democratic superpower.
After all, Lula was convicted as a leading beneficiary of the so-called “Car Wash” corruption scandal that has ensnared dozens of top Brazilian political and business figures. The former president wanted to run for president in this year’s election, but instead, he’s heading off to a term in a different government facility.
The Brazilian judiciary’s decision to hold Lula to the law is a profound opportunity for the better future of South America’s most populous nation. That’s because the critical condition of any effective democracy is the ability of its judiciary to enforce the law regardless of political whims. That is why the FBI and the U.S. judiciary are so critical to the well-being of our national political life: They exist — or are supposed to exist — beyond the reach of political cronyism.
As a highly popular former president, Lula was the test case for justice in the modern Brazil. If he was above the law, then the law would always be subject to the whims of the powerful. But if Lula was accountable to the rule of law, then the rule of law in Brazil can be decisive in all matters. This is an especially important landmark moment in that Lula’s millions of ardent supporters had threatened riots if he was judged as he has been today.
In that sense, choosing the rule of law over the rule of populist riot, the tie-breaking vote of current chief justice Cármen Lúcia renders her Brazil’s John Marshall. Lúcia has proved that “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”
Now, whoever wins the presidency in this October’s elections, voters and politicians alike will know that the law will apply to them too.
