SAO PAULO — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice said he is retiring eight years before his mandatory exit, opening a path for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to nominate a replacement before next year’s general elections.
The 67-year-old Luís Roberto Barroso, who was Brazil’s chief justice until September, said at the end of Thursday’s session he is leaving the court “to follow other directions.”
The announcement comes after the court recently convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro on coup charges in a high-profile case that has caused backlash from the Trump administration.
Brazilian Supreme Court justices, who need Senate approval to assume their role, can remain in their position until age 75.
“I would like to live a little more the life I have left, without the awareness, obligations and public demands of the job, with more literature and poetry,” said Barroso.
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 afterwards put under investigation and then on trial, often with Barroso’s votes in key decisions.
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.
The 70-year-old former president is currently under house arrest and appealing to avoid prison due to his health problems.
“This has nothing to do with the current environment. About two years ago I informed the president (Lula) about my intentions,” Barroso added to his colleagues on Thursday.
Barroso was nominated in 2013 by then President Dilma Rousseff, a close ally of Lula’s from the same leftist Workers’ Party.
In November 2023, Lula made his justice minister Flávio Dino his latest nominee to the court. He also nominated his lawyer Cristiano Zanin to the court earlier that year. During his first terms in the presidency, between 2003 and 2010, he also named Justices Cármen Lúcia and José Dias Tóffoli, who remain on the court.
