President of the Judiciary, Tutmés Airan, temporarily assumes the Government of Alagoas from this Wednesday (30) — Photo: Caio Loureiro
Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), overturned the removal of judge Tutmés Airan de Albuquerque Melo, of the Court of Justice of Alagoas (TJAL), and ordered his immediate return to office.
Tutmés Airan had been temporarily removed by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) after a decision that temporarily suspended an investigation by the Federal Police into suspected fraud in electoral domicile transfers in Alagoas.
In the decision, Gilmar Mendes considered that the removal was related to the content of a judicial decision and that there was not sufficient demonstration of a serious disciplinary offense to justify the measure.
Understand the case
The Federal Police investigation investigated suspicions of fraudulent electoral registrations and irregular transfers of electoral domicile in the municipality of Junqueiro, in the interior of Alagoas.
During the investigation, the PF asked the Legislative Assembly of Alagoas for a list of all the House's commissioned employees and an indication of which state deputy was linked to each of them.
The Assembly questioned the request because, according to the STF decision, the Federal Police letter did not make clear what the object of the investigation was. There was also doubt about the possibility of the investigation involving state deputies, who have jurisdiction by function prerogative in certain situations.
Because of this, the Assembly filed a complaint with the Court of Justice of Alagoas. The case was distributed to judge Tutmés Airan.
On August 4, 2026, he granted a provisional decision, called an injunction, temporarily suspending the investigation. The judge also ordered that the files be sent confidentially to the TJAL so that the competence to conduct the case could be analyzed.
The injunction should later be analyzed by the full court.
What happened next
Subsequently, the Federal Police reported that the investigation was exclusively electoral in nature and did not involve parliamentarians.
With access to the complete files, the case was redistributed to another TJAL judge. He recognized the competence of the Electoral Court to analyze the case and revoked the injunction granted by Tutmés Airan.
After that, a disciplinary representation was filed against the judge at the CNJ.
The national inspector of justice, minister Benedito Gonçalves, ordered the precautionary removal of Tutmés Airan from his duties.
The removal was a provisional measure taken while the disciplinary case was analyzed by the CNJ.
Gilmar Mendes' decision
When analyzing the case, Gilmar Mendes decided to overturn the removal.
The minister stated that the decision taken by Tutmés Airan was related to the exercise of the jurisdictional function. In other words, it was a decision taken within a judicial process to verify which judicial body would be competent to analyze the investigation.
According to Gilmar, the removal of a judge cannot be used simply as punishment for the content or interpretation of a judicial decision.
The minister also stated that, at that time, there was no demonstration of a serious disciplinary offense that would justify the measure.
Another point considered in the decision was the period in which the leave occurred. Gilmar highlighted that the measure was taken on the eve of the elections and assessed that the removal of a magistrate due to a judicial decision could create a risk to the independence of Justice and the neutrality of the State during the electoral process.
With the decision, Tutmés Airan must immediately return to his duties at the Alagoas Court of Justice.
Gilmar Mendes' decision does not prevent the CNJ from continuing to investigate other facts related to the judge's actions, as long as they are independent of the content of the judicial decision analyzed by the STF.
