Brazil lawyers press top...

cell in a federal police building in southern Brazil.

In a video posted on Lula’s official Facebook page on Sunday, Zanin said that he had seen Lula and that “he is doing well, though indignant with the situation.”

In addition to a possible injunction, Supreme Court Justice Mello could also use a technical maneuver during the high court’s session on Wednesday to force the justices to re-examine a 2016 ruling that set the precedent for jailing Lula.

In that decision, the court decided that the condemned could begin serving prison sentences if their conviction was upheld on a first appeal.

Mello is one of several justices who have publicly clamored to revisit that ruling and overturn it. Critics have said that would be a blow against Brazil’s unprecedented anti-corruption efforts of the last four years.

The appeals process can take years or even decades in Brazil’s complex and backlogged legal system, offering impunity to those rich enough to afford lawyers who can launch countless technical appeals.

Top federal prosecutor Raquel Dodge argued before the high court last week if they overturned the ruling allowing convicts to be jailed after a first appeal, it would “call into question the seriousness of the country’s legal system ... as it would restore the sensation of impunity.”