FABIO VICTOR
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS)
It was a similar moment to now: in 2011, Ellen Gracie, the first female minister of the Federal Supreme Court, was close to retiring from the court, stimulating a frantic race for her seat. Maria Elizabeth Rocha, minister of the STM (Superior Military Court), appeared among the most cited names.
The person chosen by Dilma Rousseff would be Rosa Weber – whose retirement, at the end of this month, fuels disputes and betting exchanges similar to those of 12 years ago.
Even though she was passed over, Elizabeth reinforced her visibility on the first team of the national Judiciary. Appointed by Lula (PT) in 2007, she was the first woman to join the STM, the oldest court in the country, created in 1808.
This time, Elizabeth Rocha, 63, does not emerge as the favorite for Rosa’s place, but praises the new scenario.
“Society is discovering – and I say this ironically, because it discovers very late – that there are many extremely competent women suitable for the position of minister”, he says. She advocates that a black judge occupy the chair.
Militant for a more diverse and inclusive society, Elizabeth celebrates advances in relation to the rights of women, black people and homosexuals. She knows that there is still a long way to go and is concerned about a decline in the female space in the courts, a worsening that could be confirmed in the next succession in the STF.
“We lost a woman in the TCU, with the retirement of Ana Arraes. We lost a woman in the TSE, when Maria Claudia Bucchianeri, who should have been the appointed minister, was not. And now we are running the risk of losing a woman in the Supreme Court. In other words, instead of progress, there is a setback. And that is scary.”
The news that Lula tends to remove 1 of the 2 women’s vacancies in the STF, appointing a man, amplifies his forcefulness. “Because he is a president who, after all, calls himself avant-garde, a man of the left.”
It can be said that Elizabeth has a place to speak for the charge. She is an exception in the STM not only because she remains the only woman among 15 members (10 military personnel, four-star generals from the three Armed Forces, and 5 civilians), but because she has always been associated with the progressive camp, contrary to the majority in uniform. of the court.
Daughter of lawyer Aderbal Teixeira Rocha — a Brizolista, one of the founders of the PDT in Belo Horizonte, the minister is a critic of the military coup and dictatorship, which she once defined as “a long night that lasted 21 years”.
She is married to retired general Romeu Costa Ribeiro Bastos, brother of Paulo Costa Ribeiro Bastos, a member of the MR-8 and one of the names on the list of missing political victims of the dictatorship.
The general was secretary of administration of the Civil House of the Presidency in Lula’s first term and secretary general of the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) under José Antonio Dias Toffoli – one of the godfathers of Elizabeth’s appointment to the STM.
“I respect the military, I am respected by them, I have nothing to say. But we think differently and that doesn’t mean I suffer any kind of hostility”, says the minister.
It’s not quite like that. Right at her inauguration ceremony, in 2007, Elizabeth had to endure an awkward speech from the general who was theoretically in charge of greeting her, Valdésio Guilherme de Figueiredo.
The colleague pulled her ears for an interview she had given on the eve of the inauguration and remembered and reminded her that, in the STM, she would have to respect military doctrine.
In 2014, Elizabeth was vice-president of the court, and the president (Raimundo Nonato de Cerqueira Filho) retired mid-term.
According to the minister, a (civilian) colleague tried to change the regulations to prevent her from taking over. She says she had support from military ministers against the change of tables, and ended up elected to preside over the court for the remainder of the term.
In the day-to-day life of the court, it is not uncommon for people to have their speeches interrupted. Or you see the theses you defended only being endorsed when delivered by a male peer.
“Then sometimes I joke: ‘Minister So-and-So, this thesis already exists and it wasn’t Minister So-and-So who defended it here in the plenary, it was me, but your Excellencies didn’t follow me. When he defended it, then your Excellencies changed their understanding’. “
As for the coup and the dictatorship, because there is a gap between her opinion and that of most of her colleagues (who tend to refer to the period with mystifications and euphemisms such as “countercoup” or “movement”), Elizabeth says that the subject is tangential.
Since the military ministers are from a generation less directly affected by the period, she says that the attitude of the court’s uniforms is more balanced than that of older generals.
If there is something that Elizabeth and the military ministers are in tune with, it is the defense of Military Justice and the role of the STM, including during the dictatorship – and there she disagrees with researchers from the period and human rights activists.
Elizabeth admits that the STM knew about the atrocities committed by the regime, but emphasizes that it was at the same time “the only court in the country that unanimously signed a ruling against torture and abuse” and that its action was limited because it was not provoked by the Ministry Military Public.
In democratic times, the minister disagrees with those who defend the extinction of Military Justice.
A guarantor proclaims herself: “I am one of those who most absolve there. For me, there was a lack of a stamp in the process, I annul it, because I think that, to take away someone’s freedom or primacy, the State has to be very convinced, and the chain of custody and evidence has to be strictly correct, and it often isn’t.”
When relativizing the corporatism of Military Justice, he says that colleagues in uniform are not like that. “They are punitive, they understand that punishment has to be given, including as an example for the troops.”
Sometimes it leaves aside its anti-punitive nature, as in the case of the soldiers who murdered a musician and a collector in Rio in 2019: at the beginning of the process, Elizabeth voted to keep the defendants in preventive custody, but was defeated. “It was different there, it was an extermination.” Later, the Military Court sentenced eight soldiers to sentences ranging from 31 years to 28 years in prison.
It is for situations like this that Elizabeth is radically against the use of military personnel in public security operations, which she defines as “an excrescence, because the Armed Forces military personnel are not prepared to be police officers, but to go to war.”
He considers that “collateral damage” (a euphemism for the deaths of innocent people in actions of this type) is a tragic contingency and argues that it is up to the Military Justice to judge crimes committed by uniformed personnel in these circumstances – an impasse that ended up in the STF.
Although she condemns the politicization of the Armed Forces promoted by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the minister defends the role of the military leadership – including with regard to the “day of infamy”, as referred to on January 8th.
“There was no coup in Brazil because the Armed Forces didn’t want it, because apparently there was a lot of will.”
Elizabeth had a career in private law and then embarked on public law. No barracks. This does not diminish her purpose, as minister of the STM, of including women in the Armed Forces. In the Army, the most closed, they are not accepted into the main arms, which practically prevents them from reaching the top of the career ladder.
He should take the challenge as one of his many crusades when, in 2025, he returns to preside over the court, this time effectively. The second oldest member of the STM today, on this occasion she will also be the dean of the court.
X-RAY | MARIA ELIZABETH GUIMARÃES TEIXEIRA ROCHA, 63
- She has been a minister at the Superior Military Court since 2007. Born in Belo Horizonte, she graduated in law in 1982, from PUC Minas. She has a master’s degree in legal-political sciences from the Portuguese Catholic University (Lisbon) and a doctorate in constitutional law from UFMG. She worked as a lawyer, was a federal prosecutor (1st place in the AGU competition in 1985). She worked in the Chamber of Deputies, in the TSE and in the Sub-Head for Legal Affairs of the Civil House of the Presidency. She teaches postgraduate law at UniCEUB, in Brasília.
The post The only military court minister struggled to prevail among generals appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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