Bolsonaro blasts COVID probe, alleges 'SC justice is playing politics along with Senate'

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on April 9 said that he was the victim of “judicial activism” after Supreme Court ordered the Senate to launch an inquiry into his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Justice Luis Roberto Barroso ruled on April 8 that a potentially damaging inquiry should be set up into Bolsonaro government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country which the far-right leader has already downplayed several times even as the disease claimed more than 345,000 lives in the South American nation. 

"Barroso suffers from a lack of moral courage and an excess of judicial activism," Bolsonaro told supporters outside the presidential palace in Brasilia. "That's not what Brazil needs. We're at a critical moment in the pandemic, there are people dying, and a Supreme Court justice is playing politics along with the Senate."

Similar to other nations across the globe, Brazil is presently also gripped with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and is recording a dramatic surge in the novel coronavirus infections. This has pushed the medical care in the country to its limits as Brazil already has the second-highest death toll of COVID-19 in the world just after the United States. Meanwhile, the South American nation is also battling to secure enough vaccines for the 212 million population.

SC order against Bolsonaro's govt

The judge’s ruling had stated that the Senate commission will be tasked with investigating the actions as well as the omissions of Bolsonaro’s government, “particularly with regard to the worsening of the health crisis in the state of Amazonas, after the lack of oxygen for hospitalized patients.” earlier in January, several dozens of people lost their lives in Manaus, the state’s capital as hospitals ran out of oxygen to treat the patients admitted with COVID-19.

"It is not to investigate deviations of resources of governors or some mayors. It is to investigate government omissions", said Bolsonaro as the Supreme Court ruling also stated on Thursday that regional authorities can prohibit in-person religious services under the coronavirus restrictions. It was also something that Bolsonao, who himself had contracted COVID-19 last year, has strongly opposed. 

Image credits: AP