Brazil’s Senate defies order to suspend speaker

Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday rejected a judge’s order to suspend its speaker who faces trial for alleged embezzlement in a scandal that threatens to destabilise President Michel Temer. The chamber’s governing panel said it would keep speaker Renan Calheiros in his post until a full session of all 11 judges in the Supreme Court rules […]

Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday rejected a judge’s order to suspend its speaker who faces trial for alleged embezzlement in a scandal that threatens to destabilise President Michel Temer.

The chamber’s governing panel said it would keep speaker Renan Calheiros in his post until a full session of all 11 judges in the Supreme Court rules on whether he should be suspended.

“Removing the speaker of the Senate from his post nine days before the end of his term… through a monocratic decision… even in Brazil, democracy does not deserve such a fate,” Calheiros told reporters after meeting with the panel.

Supreme court judge Marco Aurelio Mello on Monday ordered the suspension of Calheiros, 61, the third most powerful official in Brazil.

That decision deepened the political drama in Brazil, worsening the outlook for Temer as he struggles to lift Latin America’s biggest economy out of crisis.