Superior Court of Justice

Official site: Superior Court of Justice.
In Portuguese, the court is called Superior Tribunal de Justiça, often referred to as the STJ.

The Superior Court is composed in accordance to article 104 of the Constitution. The Court is composed by, at least, thirty-three Justices (in Portuguese, Ministros).
Justices are appointed by the President of the Republic, and their names must be approved by the Federal Senate. Justices must be aged between 35 and 65, at time of appointment, and must be of notable juridical learning and spotless reputation. Besides, Justices must be either Judges of Federal or State courts, or members of Public Prosecution, or lawyers appointed by the Brazilian BAR Association.
In the recent past, there have been a few cases of misconduct of Justices of this Superior Court.
Check out this list with the current Justices of the Superior Court of Justice.

Article 105 establishes the competences of the STJ.
Basically, the STJ is the last Judiciary instance of cases with non-constitutional subjects (notice that, because the Brazilian Constitution is very broad, a significant amount of cases involves constitutional matters, and as such must be appreciated by the Supreme Federal Court). All judicial cases are judged, first, by a first instance judge (federal or State Judge); in case of appeal, the case goes to a Federal or State Court; when there is a difference between the first and second instance sentences, an appeal may be proposed to the Superior Court.

Justices of the STJ are also members of the Federal Council of Justice, which has the administrative and budgetary control of the Federal Justice (not to be confused with the National Council of Justice , which exercizes the external control of the Judiciary Power). The Federal Council proposes, for example, increases in salary, admission of personel, construction of new buildings.


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