STF Ruling Challenges Judges’ Forced Retirement as Senate Delays Ban

Overview

• On March 16, Minister Flávio Dino ruled in a single-judge decision that, after the 2019 pension reform, serious judicial misconduct should result in loss of office rather than compulsory retirement.
• The decision applies only to the case of Judge Marcelo Borges Barbosa and has no automatic nationwide effect, with broader change dependent on a plenary STF ruling, a CNJ resolution or a constitutional amendment.
• A g1 review identified roughly 40 magistrates punished with compulsory retirement since 2019 whose cases fit Dino’s thesis that dismissal, not retirement, should be the ultimate sanction.
• Courts continue to rely on temporary suspension with pay as an alternative, with the CNJ suspending Desembargador Carlos Henrique Abrão for six months and CNJ data showing 58 suspensions and 126 compulsory retirements since 2006, costing about R$ 60 million per year.
• The Senate is considering a PEC to bar compulsory retirement as the harshest penalty, but a request for review by Senator Sergio Moro postponed the vote and discussion is expected to resume on April 8.