São Paulo, Brazil
After more than four months waiting for his confirmation hearing in the Senate, lawyer and Presbyterian minister André Mendonça was finally approved on 1st December as Brazil’s new Supreme Court justice.
Formerly President Jair Bolsonaro’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mendonça was seen by most Evangelical Protestants as somebody who could represent the fulfilment of an old promise made by Bolsonaro. In 2019, he pledged to his Evangelical constituency that he would nominate a “terribly Evangelical justice” as soon as possible.
New Brazilian Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça. PICTURE: José Dias/Presidência do Brasil
Bolsonaro had appointed Mendonça on 13th July. While most of such sessions generally occur within a few days, Senator Davi Alcolumbre, who heads the Senate constitution and justice commission and thus was in charge of scheduling the hearing, did not do so until last week when he finally announced a date.
Alcolumbre, who was the Senate’s president till the beginning of 2021, claimed that the current “political turbulences” led him to take all that long. He also mentioned in a letter about the subject that hundreds of relevant issues were under analysis in his commission.
Many analysts claimed that Alcolumbre was delaying the hearing in order to pressure Bolsonaro in political negotiations. Alcolumbre denied it. He said that he was pressured and threatened during those months due to his decision to not schedule the confirmation hearing.
He also said that some people – seen as a reference to Bolsonaro supporters – implied that he did not want to schedule the hearing because he is Jewish.
After an eight-hour hearing, Mendonça was approved by the commission and the voting began. Forty-seven senators voted for his approval and 32 voted against him. That has been the worst result for a Supreme Court justice in Brazil since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985.
During the hearing, Mendonça tried to distance himself from the image of a fundamentalist evangelical. He denied he would pray during Supreme Court sessions – something that Bolsonaro had asked him to do – and said that “there’s no place for public religious manifestations” there.
“In life, the Bible; in the Supreme Court, the constitution,” he affirmed.
But his tone somewhat changed after his approval. The new justice celebrated it by rephrasing Neil Armstrong’s quote. “That’s one small step for man, one leap for the Evangelicals,” he said. He “gave glory to God” for his “victory” and thanked the members of the Congress’ Evangelical bloc.
Many evangelical congressmen had been mobilised to support his approval, said Pastor Raul José Ferreira, Jr, an adviser to one of the leading members of the Christian bloc.
“Most evangelicals received with delight his confirmation, because we see in him somebody who is not only qualified for that role but is also in line with the evangelical values,” he told Sight.
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For Mendonça’s coreligionists, his confirmation was certainly more special.
“It’s a great honour for us in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil [known as IPB] to see one of our genuine members occupying a chair in the Supreme Court. Justice André Mendonça has all necessary qualities to perform the mission to which he was elected, and I think he will be successful,” affirmed Rev Juarez Marcondes, a prominent IPB member.
Marcondes emphasised that Mendonça is “committed to the Brazilian Constitution” and that he was able to demonstrate with his “wise answers” and his “tranquil attitude” during the hearing that he is trustworthy.
But not all Protestants liked his confirmation. Part of them share the ideas of Mendonça’s critics, who recalled in the hearing that during his tenure as Minister of Justice, he opened inquiries against some of Bolsonaro’s opponents using a law established during the military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985. Journalists were among the people investigated.
Mendonça was also asked by some senators about his attitude during the worst phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bolsonaro, who has always tried to downplay the seriousness of the disease, insisted on keeping churches opened. Mendonça agreed with him. More than 614,000 Brazilians have died of COVID-19.
Progressive Christians also fear Mendonça’s conservativism when it comes to moral issues. Asked in the Senate about same-sex marriage, for instance, he said he has his “specific conception of faith” regarding that matter.
“But as a judge in the Supreme Court, I have to be guided by the constitution. I will defend the constitutional right to the civil matrimony of people of the same sex,” he said.
In the opinion of Lutheran Pastor Romi Bencke, who heads the Progressive organization National Council of Christian Churches, “far-right Christians have done a heavy lobby [for his approval] and succeeded.”
“That result did not surprise me. I only lament the colonization that they want to do in the Supreme Court, occupying such an important place in order to impose their values and ideas,” she told Sight.
