The clash began over online posts claiming that presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro intended to strip Our Lady of Aparecida of her title as Brazil’s patron saint. At the campaign’s request, TSE vice-president André Mendonça ordered the removal of the material and barred similar content, with fines for non-compliance.

Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino reversed that order on Sunday, finding the posts lacked the degree of certainty needed to justify what he called restrictions on “freedom of expression and religious freedom.” He ordered the content restored and referred the issue for a future in-person hearing by the full Supreme Court.¹

For Nunes Marques, who heads the TSE, the episode raised a broader institutional concern. In a meeting with STF President Edson Fachin, he complained of an “undue overlap of competence” and sought a screening mechanism for urgent election-related petitions reaching the Supreme Court. His submission warned that individual rulings from outside the electoral court could create a “functional subordination of the TSE,” weaken collegial decision-making and bring legal instability during a period of tight electoral deadlines.²

The two accounts agree on the immediate sequence: Mendonça acted on the Bolsonaro campaign’s request, and Dino subsequently set aside the TSE ruling. They diverge over what that reversal signifies. The first account presents it as an intervention in the electoral court’s authority, whereas Dino’s stated reasoning emphasizes the evidentiary threshold for restricting speech.¹

The dispute has also focused attention on case assignment. Nunes Marques argued that litigants may invoke broad constitutional precedents to steer emergency requests toward particular Supreme Court chambers. The account of his request, however, also notes earlier controversy over a TSE redistribution order involving an AtlasIntel case, after which a matter initially assigned to Justice Estela Aranha was reassigned.²