Ruling may result in Da Silva’s release

Brazil’s Supreme Court delivered a narrow decision yesterday that could release almost 5000 inmates still appealing their convictions, including jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The court decided in a 6-5 vote that a person can be imprisoned only after all appeals to higher courts have been exhausted.

The decision appears to cover Da Silva and others convicted in cases arising from the sprawling ‘‘Car Wash’’ corruption investigation, which has ensnared dozens of top politicians and business leaders in Latin America’s biggest nation.

The Supreme Court’s debate began in mid-October and its result could throw Brazil’s political landscape into uncertainty. Da Silva had been favoured to win the 2018 presidential election, but his conviction prohibited him from running.

He remains a popular figure on the Left, whose politicians and voters have ceaselessly called for his release and celebrated yesterday’s ruling.

The former president’s attorneys said in a statement they would request his release today. That move would initially depend on a judge based in the southern city of Curitiba, where Da Silva was jailed.

Prosecutors from the Car Wash probe said in a statement that the decision ‘‘goes against the sentiment of repudiating impunity and the fight against corruption’’.

The decision marks a sharp change for Brazil’s top court, which in February 2016 accepted that defendants whose convictions are upheld may be jailed even if their other appeals are pending. Brazil’s constitution states that no-one can be considered guilty until due process is concluded.

Da Silva, universally known to Brazilians as Lula, presided over a period of rapid economic growth from 2003 to 2010 fuelled by a commodities boom that expanded the country’s middle class.

His huge Bolsa Familia welfare programme helped lift millions from poverty, and he left office with an approval rating above 80 per cent. The former union leader is widely referred to as a ‘‘political animal’’ whose impassioned oratory can just as easily elicit laughter or tears from those among his faithful.

Justice Gilmar Mendes, who voted for the release of inmates who have yet to conclude their appeals, said Da Silva’s case ‘‘contaminated’’ debate on the case.