Vitor Martins Dias is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University, where he writes about how legal, political, and social actors influence global and local institutions and organizations, producing social change and reproducing structural inequalities. His forthcoming paper explores the political contours of and motivations behind Operation Car Wash, a 2018 investigation in which former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) was sent to jail for money laundering and corruption while he was leading in the polls. As Martins Dias explores in the paper, the case shows a dramatic example of the relationship between democratic erosion and legal actors in Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy.
In this interview, Martins Dias discusses the role of lawyers and the judiciary in Brazil in both enabling and resisting backsliding democracy.
How would you describe the role of lawyers in Brazil and how they’ve enabled or facilitated democratic decline or authoritarianism? How would you describe the way in which they’ve resisted such actions?
Terence Halliday wrote that lawyers can both limit and enable state power, and this is certainly true in Brazil. We see this first in 1964, when Brazil transitioned into a military dictatorship, which lasted until 1985. At the time, important sectors of civil society supported the military’s takeover, including the Brazilian Bar Association. It took some time for the bar to publicly regret its support for the military, as an increasing number of lawyers were tortured and disappeared.
Brazil enacted a democratic constitution in 1988, but in the last decade or so, we have experienced significant democratic backsliding, marked by lawyers as both facilitators and resistors to challenges to the rule of law and the weakening of democratic institutions. In 2013 thousands of Brazilian citizens took to the streets in protests that began in response to rising transportation costs but became about larger unrealized constitutional rights and corruption in the government. Increasing polarization in Brazilian society and dissatisfaction with the economic and political system culminated in the ascension of Jair Bolsonaro’s government in 2018.
The Supreme Court has taken an even more active role in resisting the process of democratic backsliding.
Vitor Martins Dias, assistant professor, Butler University
A notable example of lawyers’ dual role is their involvement during the high-profile investigation Operation Car Wash, which was initially aimed at uncovering widespread corruption within Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company. Judges and prosecutors, on one hand, found ways to conduct criminal lawsuits against policymakers and well-connected business people involved in corruption. But evidence also demonstrated strong judicial biases in how such cases were handled. For instance, with the support of both the political parties and the Brazilian Bar Association, lawyers successfully contested decisions that were taken during these corruption-related criminal lawsuits. Operation Car Wash became a focal point in democratic backsliding research, as it was revealed how prosecutors were increasingly motivated by the possibility of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) winning against Bolsonaro. Evidence revealed that prosecutors coordinated their efforts with judges, and Lula was sent to jail while leading in the polls. Later, the judge in charge of Lula’s case became Bolsonaro’s minister of justice.
What do we need to know about the judiciary in Brazil and its resistance or facilitation of democratic backsliding and authoritarianism?
Even though Bolsonaro had strong support from important lawyers in Brazil, the Supreme Court has taken an even more active role in resisting the process of democratic backsliding than other branches of the court system and the judiciary just a few years prior. More recently in February 2025, government lawyers actually brought charges against former president Bolsonaro for an attempted coup on January 8, 2022. To understand this, you must understand the state of the Brazilian judiciary after the military dictatorship. The Constitution of 1988 brought discretionary powers to the Supreme Court in Brazil, meaning the Supreme Court in Brazil has the constitutional powers of the American Supreme Court, but it is also an appellate court—it hears a wider range of cases and is the first stop for certain privileged individuals, like the president. The Brazilian constitution says who should be tried directly at the Supreme Court—as an initial forum—but also who can appeal to the Supreme Court, and in which cases.
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Operation Car Wash
Because of Brazil’s history with dictatorship, there are certain crimes that pertain to protecting the state from people attacking the state. That is, if we have organized groups attempting to undermine and attack democracy and take power by force, they can face criminal charges in Brazil. That’s the legal case against Bolsonaro that the Supreme Court is expected to analyze, because there is some evidence suggesting that he was aware of the events that happened on January 8 in Brazil. The courts, throughout Bolsanaro’s presidency and now current president Lula’s, have taken a more active role against democratic backsliding, primarily because of these powers. We also saw this, for instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Bolsonaro dismantled the Brazilian health care system, the Supreme Court frequently ruled against the president. The decisions in health-related lawsuits against Bolsonaro’s interests underscore how the Brazilian Supreme Court has maintained its independence under and despite a president seeking to undermine democracy.
What strategies have lawyers—both those engaging in politically sensitive lines of work and more general lawyers, for example, corporate, business—developed to operate in Brazil?
To talk about the facilitators of and resistors to democratic backsliding, we must talk about the political parties. Historically, lawyers have been active players in Brazilian politics, both by joining political parties and by representing them in court. For example, legal professionals participated directly in the deliberation and drafting processes of the Brazilian Constitution while the country transitioned back into democracy, whether they served as members of Congress or experts. Additionally, and more recently, both the lead judge and prosecutor in the Operation Car Wash lawsuit involving Lula joined political parties to run for office. That duality of the legal profession in facilitating and resisting democratic backsliding appears here as well.
And others, like Oscar Vilhena Vieira at São Paulo Law School, are doing important work on all of this. The Brazilian constitution is as specific as saying who can bring certain kinds of lawsuits to the Supreme Court. Political parties are part of this group. They were very active during the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraging the lockdown and vaccination efforts, despite governmental resistance. Political parties were also incredibly active in environmental affairs too, even as the Bolsonaro government started to defund environmental agencies. Lawyers have played a key role by bringing these lawsuits to court and also maintaining political connections to the parties attempting to resist Bolsonaro. Brazil’s multiparty system is also helpful in facilitating this resistance.
[Conservative lawyers] are paying attention to what has happened in places like Hungary under Viktor Orbán and the United States under Donald Trump.
Vitor Martins Dias
In this increasingly globalized world, lawyers are paying attention to the strategies that conservative presidents take when trying to overreach or trying to limit government action in key areas where governments have historically taken a more positive role. They are paying attention to what has happened in places like Hungary under Viktor Orbán and the United States under Donald Trump. By being attuned to these international matters, this has helped facilitate some kind of resistance to what is going on in Brazil.
I can give one example from environmental affairs in the Brazilian Amazon, for example, where I’m originally from. Bolsonaro’s administration changed the structure of the Amazon Fund, which is a Brazilian fund created to support the rainforest. At that time, Bolsonaro’s minister of the environment was a lawyer, who is currently serving as a congressman. The fund counts on financial support, mainly from Norway and Germany. By changing the structure of the fund, Germany and Norway said, “Hey, we’re going to stop our investments because deforestation is growing, fires are going, and we don’t know where our money is going.” With Germany and Norway’s announcement, international pressure started to increase. This prompted state governors, even some of them who were former allies of Bolsonaro, to try to create their own state-level funds aimed at reducing deforestation in the region. In the state of Pará, where I’m from, for instance, the state secretary of the environment—who was also a lawyer—was the one structuring the Eastern Amazon Fund to partner with businesses, and also state agencies from Norway and Germany, to try to take state-level action in the absence of the federal government in this particular field of environmental affairs.
Law firms in Brazil have likewise called attention to how the Brazilian legal profession has become more integrated into these global networks, learning different strategies by observing what is happening in other countries and also creating their own national ways to deal with these issues.
How have lawyers used associations, networks, and relationships to enable or resist democratic backsliding in Brazil?
Networks have been incredibly important in terms of enabling democratic backsliding in Brazil. One of Bolsonaro’s sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a lawyer who joined the police force before becoming a politician, has been a key player in building and expanding such networks. Members of the Bolsonaro coalition, for instance, have attended the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in the United States and participated in circles of power around other conservative leaders. Eduardo Bolsonaro delivered a speech at the most recent CPAC event in 2025. And there were documented ties between Steve Bannon and the Bolsonaro campaign, for instance, and how Bolsonaro’s team could capitalize on social networks and social media to actually win the election.
But networks have also been important for lawyers engaged in resistance. We have, for instance, historic participation in the Brazil Conference at Harvard, where Brazilian Supreme Court justices have spoken publicly about the role of courts in the democratic process in Brazil even when Bolsonaro was in power. These international events are important where members of the Supreme Court and the legal profession can debate what’s going on in Brazil, in light of parallels that are happening elsewhere in the world.
[Networks between the bar and political parties] have been able to litigate against the president without fear of retaliation.
Vitor Martins Dias
There are also other more formal networking mechanisms of devising institutions and governance tools to resist backsliding within specific sectors. For instance, central banks in France and across Europe created the Network for Greening the Financial System to try to harmonize and define what counts as a green investment, what counts as a brown investment, and how to deal with governments that facilitate investments in one or the other. Why am I bringing this into a conversation about democratic backsliding? Because the Brazilian Central Bank joined the Network for Greening the Financial System under and despite Bolsonaro. And how did the central bank do that? Well, they were able to because the Brazilian Central Bank has the mandate to make such decisions according to a statute passed in 1964, under the military dictatorship. This statute from 1964, which was undersigned by the lawyer and economist Otávio Gouveia de Bulhões, outlined the discretionary powers of the Brazilian Central Bank even in authoritarian regimes. They don’t depend on presidential authority and authorization to participate and engage in networks that are part of monetary policy, but now increasingly environmental policy as well. This speaks to how lawyers matter, because the Brazilian Central Bank was only able to do that because it was part of its mandate. There is a statute in place—passed in the context of authoritarianism—that allows the Brazilian Central Bank to join this particular network because of the foresight of lawyers working within the system.
We’ve already discussed the role of the Brazilian Bar Association—and its relationship to the political parties—which has been an important point of resistance against Bolsonaro’s government and policies. Many of the lawsuits that political parties brought against Bolsonaro he lost in the Supreme Court. So, these networks between political parties, lawyers, and the bar more broadly have been quite effective in Brazil. They have been able to litigate against the president without fear of retaliation. These networks could strategize somewhat freely, even under pressure and while our democracy was under threat.
What can lawyers in other countries learn from the experiences, the resistance strategies that you’ve seen as a check on government power in Brazil?
There are two things we can learn from the Brazilian experience. One is to try to adjust our lenses a little bit here. We should not only look to our Western counterparts but also look at what’s happening in other parts of the world and even in authoritarian regimes. What happens when we compare democratic regimes to authoritarian regimes? Are they completely different? The answer, I found, is no. I think it is important that we recognize features of authoritarianism even in democratic regimes. We tend to draw parallels between democratic countries in the West: Brazil, the United States, Hungary, parts of Europe. But the more I look at about how democratic backsliding was facilitated by members of the judiciary and the procuracy in Brazil, the more I find similarities between how prosecutors, judges, and police officers have coordinated efforts in criminal lawsuits against defendants in China.
Let’s take Russia as another example here. Russia has one of the highest conviction rates in the entire world. The more I have studied how judges, prosecutors, and police officers operate in Russia, the more I have found similarities in Brazil.
What happens when we compare democratic regimes to authoritarian regimes? Are they completely different? The answer, I found, is no.
Vitor Martins Dias
Second and last, we also need to look more closely to the past. In the 1960s, the Brazilian bar supported the efforts of the military to take over the government, and military dictatorship ensued and lasted until 1988. The bar took a while to regret that position. And even though the bar took a mixed role in recent democratic backsliding processes in not being so forceful before Bolsonaro, it has somewhat made up for it with strong and forceful positions while Bolsonaro took power. I think it’s important to learn from the past, and how attacks on branches of the government have happened historically and how they could be avoided. We need to look back, and we also need to look East, and not just West.
Vitor Martins Dias is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University.
