Gilmar Mendes

Gilmar Ferreira Mendes (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒiwˈma(ʁ) feˈʁe(j).ɾɐ ˈmẽ.d͡ʒis]; born December 30, 1955) is a Brazilian Justice of the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Brazilian Supreme Federal Court), appointed by then President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 2002. Mendes was the Chief Justice of the Court for the 2008–2010 term. Earlier, he had been the Attorney General from 2000 to 2002.

He has been criticised by legal scholars and journalists for the supposedly opportunistic political motivations of his rulings, and mocked for his alleged penchant for freeing powerful politicians suspected of corruption. In 2009, fellow Justice Joaquim Barbosa confronted him during a televised session of the Court, comparing him to a local criminal leader who commanded "thugs".

Early life

Mendes was born in Diamantino, Mato Grosso. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Law from University of Brasília, received his master's degree in Law from the same university, another master's degree in Law from University of Münster (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster) with the dissertation "Presupposed Admissibility of the Abstract Norm Control in the Federal Constitutional Court" (Die Zulassigkeitsvoraussetzungen der abstrakten Normenkontrolle vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht) and a PhD in Law from the same university with the thesis "Abstract Norm Control in the Federal Constitutional Court and the Brazilian Supremo Tribunal Federal (Die abstrakte Normenkontrolle vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht und vor dem brasilianischen Supremo Tribunal Federal).