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Justice Luis Roberto Barroso on Brazil’s Institutional Challenge: Showing That Corruption Will Not Prevail

Date & Time

Friday
Sep. 8, 2017
10:00am – 12:00pm ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

The severity of economic, political, and moral crisis that has paralyzed Brazil for the past three years prompted Luis Roberto Barroso, one of the eleven justices of the Brazilian Supreme Court, to speak bluntly in recent public statements: “We desperately need political reform to counter the sense of devastation brought by corruption,” Barroso said. “It is impossible not to be ashamed…we have gotten used to dishonesty, to being led by dishonest people.” He warned in early August that politicians and other powerful people are mobilizing to “drown Lava Jato,” referring  to the three year-long federal criminal investigation that laid bare the systemic nature of corruption in the country. “They have important allies everywhere—in the highest echelons of the Republic, in the media and in places you least imagine.” Yet Barroso also argued that the country has changed; he predicts that those betting on the survival of its discredited politics will be proven wrong. 

On September 8th at the Wilson Center, Justice Barroso will address the challenges this crisis poses to the Brazilian judiciary, the only branch of the republic that still enjoys a measure of respect in society. An advocate for the end of the special judicial privileges granted to high-level officials accused of common crimes, such as receiving bribes, Barroso is a lawyer by training, a professor of constitutional law, and has served on the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2013. His presentation will be part of the Brazil Institute series on the “Rule of Law,” co-sponsored by the Brazil-U.S. Legal and Judicial Studies Program at the Washington College of Law at American University. 


Hosted By

Brazil Institute

The Brazil Institute—the only country-specific policy institution focused on Brazil in Washington—works to foster understanding of Brazil’s complex reality and to support more consequential relations between Brazilian and US institutions in all sectors. The Brazil Institute plays this role by producing independent research and programs that bridge the gap between scholarship and policy, and by serving as a crossroads for leading policymakers, scholars and private sector representatives who are committed to addressing Brazil’s challenges and opportunities.  Read more

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