Lula to nominate his own lawyer as Supreme Court judge in Brazil

Brazilian President Lula da Silva says he will nominate Cristiano Zanin, who defended him against corruption charges, to the country’s Supreme Court.

The announcement came after weeks of speculation that Lula would nominate Zanin, who was the president’s lawyer in the massive corruption scandal known as Operation Car Wash.

– Everyone expected me to nominate Zanin, not only for the role he played in my defense, but because I believe he will become one of the Supreme Court’s great judges, Lula said during a press conference on Thursday. He added that Zanin will make an exceptional referee.

The opposition is critical of the nomination and accuses Lula of trying to fill the Supreme Court with friendly judges.

Lula, who was the country’s president also from 2003 to 2010, has nominated two of the eleven judges sitting on the court, and his handpicked successor Dilma Rousseff nominated four others.

If Zanin is elected, seven of the eleven judges will be nominated by Lula and Rousseff’s PT workers’ party, which has led to accusations from the opposition that the court is left-leaning.

Zanin, a 47-year-old expert in private law, has since 2013 represented Lula in the corruption cases. The president was eventually sentenced to more than 18 months in prison for accepting bribes, but the country’s highest court overturned the sentences in 2021.

This allowed him to challenge ex-president Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election. The Supreme Court has had a vacant seat since April, when former Supreme Court judge Ricardo Lewandowski turned 75 and had to retire on compulsory retirement.