Overview
- Alexandre de Moraes assumed the STF plantão on Thursday, July 16, 2026, and will handle urgent matters for the rest of the court’s midyear recess through July 31.
- The plantão gives the acting president power to decide urgent criminal and procedural requests and to open or order investigations under the president’s prerogatives.
- Earlier in the recess Moraes renewed former president Jair Bolsonaro’s humanitarian house arrest and barred Senator Flávio Bolsonaro from visiting his father, showing how substantive measures can be taken while the full court is in recess.
- A Polícia Federal inquiry linked to Moraes’s earlier orders has led the PGR to report that data from 1,819 taxpayers were accessed, and public disclosure of server names provoked sharp criticism from the auditors’ association UnaFisco and an intimation for its president, Kleber Cabral.
- The plantão rotation normally splits duties between the president and vice-president while most ministers continue routine relatoria work, and Moraes’s use of presidential powers during recess could prompt more urgent rulings, further PF testimony, and fresh tensions between the STF and fiscal agencies.