Impeachment: Lewandowski urges senators to be responsible, impartial, courteous

During the opening of the session marking the final stage of the impeachment proceedings against suspended President Dilma Rousseff, the head of the Supreme Court (STF), Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, delivered a speech drawing upon the responsibility of senators.

According to Lewandowski, senators “are now made into veritable judges.” As such, he said, senators should abandon their ideological positions, political preferences, and personal inclinations.

Brazil's top court president urged the members of the upper house to “act with the utmost impartiality and objectivity, weighing the facts as they present themselves in the proceedings and the laws pertaining thereto.”

Remarking on the gravity of the case, the justice mentioned the Judicial Code of Ethics: “the judge, in the exercise of his/her arduous yet sublime mission, must be guided first and foremost by the principles of independence, impartiality, knowledge, and competence, acting with courtesy, transparency, prudence, diligence, integrity, dignity, honor, and decorum,” he remarked.

On Thursday (Aug. 25), the Senators will hear the eight witnesses listed for the case: two from the prosecution, and six from the defense.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira