Brazil: U.N. says corruption probe violated Lula's rights

The imprisonment and political exclusion of former President Lula da Silva violated his rights, the U.N. has said.

The conviction against former President Lula da Silva was overturned last year.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee (OHCHR) said on April 28 that the corruption case against former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2016 violated his legal rights. The probe led to Lula's imprisonment and barred him from running for the presidency in 2018, with the election subsequently won by right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

"Procedural violations rendered Lula's prohibition to run for president arbitrary and therefore in violation of his political rights, including his right to run for office," the committee's independent experts said in a statement seen by Reuters . The committee looked into the case following a complaint by Lula. The former president held the position between 2003 and 2010. Brazil's Supreme Court overturned his imprisonment in 2021, allowing him to run in October's presidential election for which he is currently polling narrowly as front-runner.

Violation of impartiality

The case launched against Lula, called "Operation Car Wash," ended up being the biggest corruption investigation in the country's history. But the OHCHR concluded that Lula's rights to privacy and impartiality were violated. They said one of the judges, Sergio Moro, released wiretap audio to the media, which violated the ex-president's presumption of innocence.

The statement said that, while states had the duty to investigate corruption and keep the public informed, they are still obliged to follow due legal procedure. The committee called on Brazil "to ensure that any further criminal proceedings against Lula comply with due process guarantees and to prevent similar violations in the future." Although a non-binding decision, the process was closely watched in a country still divided over the anti-corruption probe.

'Operation Car Wash'

The corruption probe was launched in 2016 and found cases of corruption within the state-run petroleum company, Petrobras. Moro sentenced Lula to nine years in prison in July 2017. The next year the Regional Federal Tribunal extended his sentence to 12 years. Lula began his sentence in April, and Brazil's electoral commission barred him from standing in the 2018 election. In 2021, the Supreme Court overturned Lula's conviction on the basis of his lack of impartiality by Moro. Moro, the former judge, later went on to become President Bolsonaro's justice minister.

ab/msh (Reuters, LUSA)