Brazilian president appoints ally Jorge Messias to country’s Supreme Court

SAO PAULO (AP) – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Thursday appointed Jorge Messias to the country’s Supreme Court.

Messias, currently Brazil’s Solicitor General, is Lula’s third nominee to the top court during this term.

The appointment now goes to the Senate for a vote. If confirmed, Messias will fill the seat vacated by former Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, who retired in October, eight years before his mandatory retirement.

“I make this recommendation confident that Messias will continue fulfilling his role in defending the Constitution and the rule of law in the Supreme Court, as he has done throughout his public life,” Lula said on Instagram.

Messias, 45, worked in various federal government branches before being appointed solicitor general in 2023. He is known as a loyal ally of Lula and former President Dilma Rousseff, who succeeded Lula in 2011 and was later ousted in an impeachment process in 2016.

Justice André Mendonça, who was appointed by former President Jair Bolsonaro in 2021, congratulated Messias’ nomination.

“He is a qualified candidate from the Solicitor General’s Office and meets the constitutional requirements. I also commend the president for his choice. Messias will have my full support in a republican dialogue with the senators,” Mendonça said.

Brazil’s 11-member Supreme Court has been under heavy pressure since 2023, the same year that Bolsonaro supporters trashed its building in the capital Brasilia on Jan. 8.

The far-right leader was soon afterward put under investigation and then on trial. In September, with Barroso as chief justice, a Brazilian Supreme Court panel sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years and three months in prison for a coup attempt plot, which included the riots inside the court’s building.