[castevictim]

I am glad that Brazil's court still remains independent.

Looks like Bolsonaro, should borrow couple of tips from his friend Narendra Modi. Modi, dismantled the institutions in India systematically to guarantee his long lasting power.

e.g.

The only official from the election commission who didn't give a clean-chit to Modi for his election campaign violations during last election was greeted with Income Tax raids on his family members after the election, now he has been transferred to Asian Bank(He was next in line to become Chief Election Commissioner).

Look at the current Chief Justice of India, posing with limited edition Harley Davidson[0], which apparently was brought to him 'just for a demo by a local dealer and definitely does not belong to the son of a ruling party member'!

Former Chief Justice of India, has been given membership in parliament!

[0]https://theprint.in/india/photos-of-justice-bobde-astride-a-...

[gavribirnbaum]

Brazilian here. Unfortunately I wouldn't call them independent. They simply represent the other side. Brazil is not as united behind Bolsonaro as the media makes out to be.

[egeozcan]

I'm originally from Turkey, and that's also the case with Erdoğan. I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no?

The big problem arising from the stark polarization is that there's no uncontaminated news sources anymore. Many argue that news should be political anyway but I really miss reading stuff that doesn't fit 100 percent to a single agenda.

[oscargrouch]

There are 11 or 12 supreme court judges. While one or two may present some "tastes" here and there, overall, all of them together are doing a good job til now.

Gilmar Mendes sometimes free their rich pals from prison here and there, but in other matters hes not that bad.

Dias Toffoli also do some shady things here and there but some bad things he did got reverted back by the other judges.

I dont think is fair to say they "represent the other side", first because this gives a dichotomistic way to see things that are far too simplistic.

Also because as a Brazilian too, im very thankful for what the two other powers; judiciary and legislative, have being doing to put the executive at least in check.

The president is nuts, and the country is without any sort of leadership, and if it were only incompetence, but the problem is that this guy is trying by any means necessary to do a takeover move over the republic..

And if those other powers weren't in opposition, trying to defend the democratic institutions, we would be heading to some sort of Putin state.

So of course that nothing is perfect, but overall i've been positively surprised about what they have done so far.

[aflag]

They are free to not take the government side in all matters. So, how are they not independent?

[gavribirnbaum]

Last time I visited Brazil some 5 years ago, the courts would ban Whatsapp every couple months. They were in bed with telecom companies that hated that Whatsapp made many of their services free.

[ratww]

That's a wildly uninformed accusation.

There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi.

The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.

[danilocesar]

This was not what happened. Whatsapp got banned by individual low-ranking-judges in low profile cases, which was unreasonable. Higher courts removed the ban pretty quick and made sure it won't happen again.

[gavribirnbaum]

I stand corrected then. Thanks for clarifying. I remember lots of talk about that back then and I was not aware of the details.

[shripadk]

The Print is a Congress party affiliated publication with many of its writers having affiliation in some form with the Indian National Congress. What you posted are just allegations/innuendos against Modi. Nothing more.

As far as Modi is concerned, he has been vilified for over 2 decades now. Enough crap has been said about him and none of it proven till date. He was not the Prime Minister for 1 full decade. If there was a shred of evidence against Modi that would have implicated him it would have gotten him behind bars. If you can't find even one case that can be taken to logical conclusion then the onus is on you to prove Modi is guilty and not on Modi to prove his innocence.

The Congress party ruled from 2004 to 2014. And they hate Modi the most in India. Especially the top brass of the party. They tried every trick in the book and nothing stuck. So to say that Modi has control over all institutions is just baseless slander. Nothing more!

The Print has openly advocated for spreading fake news against Modi Government [1]. I wouldn't even take them as a media publication. More a Congress mouthpiece.

Direct quote from their article:

"4. Compete: Across the world, fire-hosing of falsehood is becoming a powerful propaganda tool. Those who want to defeat such propaganda may have to do their own fire-hosing of falsehood. As the Hindi saying goes, iron cuts iron. When public opinion is being manipulated with fake news and lies, the opposition cannot win the game with mere fact-checking. It may have to do its own rapid and continuous misinformation with little regard for the truth. The RAND researchers suggest this is what the US should do against Russia."

[1]: https://theprint.in/opinion/why-modi-government-gets-away-wi...

[dannyr]

Add Duterte to that list. He appointed 11 out of 15 justices to the Philippine Supreme Court.

[sukilot]

Interesting but off-topic. Submit a new top-level post.

[sizeofchar]

There is nothing independent with Brazil’s court. They are just dismantling the executive powers so they and their own can be kept on power.

In Brazil, the Supreme Court is filled by presidential choice. Brazil had 25 consecutive years with social democratic and socialists presidents, so that every justice currently have been put there by them. Now that democracy turned to the right-wing, the losers aren’t accepting the results and the reforms being made, that takes out their privileges and positions of power.

I know barely nothing about India, but what you described certainly is not correlated to what is happening in Brazil.

[gavribirnbaum]

True. You cannot expect the judicial to be apolitical if it is appointed by the other two highly political branches of government. But we pretend it is apolitical in Brazil and in the US.

[fiatjaf]

You're glad that this independent court is censoring people?

[Barrin92]

Yes, as in this case the posts in question include direct physical threats like threatening the children of judges with murder and rape.

Using social media to threaten physical violence against Bolsonaro's opponents has been a theme all throughout his time in power.

[scroogeydop]

Believe it or not, censorship can be good.

[cscurmudgeon]

This is why I come to Hacker News.

Absence of irrelevant political motivated posts with flimsy evidence.