Even in the USA courts have some limited investigation powers over matters under the jurisdiction of the court, for example when a draft of the Dobbs abortion ruling was leaked.
Brazil has dialed this up to 11 by declaring the Internet as being under their jurisdiction. That means they can act as judge, prosecutor, and jury and issue court orders regarding anything that happens on the Internet. There is zero recourse because they are the supreme court.
> How does the court have what also seems like legislative power?
It doesn't. It just does it anyway.
(Technically, it can dictate to courts how to interpret laws. On practice, it dictates things like "a person can only be arrested after a judge hosts a trial and orders it" as "a person can only be arrested after all judges host a trial". The power to interpret laws is extremely ambiguous.)
Yes. However checks and balances work because the other branches will choose to assert their power over a branch that is overstepping. However, the other branches are in the hands of the ruling socialists, and they are just happy to let the judiciary do their dirty work. And, they have quite a few skeletons still in their closet after the Lava Jato scandal.
Anyway a thorough explanation of the applicable law, point by point
> However, the other branches are in the hands of the ruling socialists
I'm sorry, but... what?
The Executive is the one closest to this qualification, but Lula, Haddad, Zé Múcio, Tebet and the others in power are nowhere even close to being socialists! Lula perhaps, until about a couple decades ago was a little bit closer but now he's not even on the left very much.
The Congress and the Senate, on the other hand, are mostly in the hands of neopentecostal evangelicals, the pro-gun nutjobs, the agrobusiness tycoons and other capitalists and fascists.
Fernando Haddad, Minister of Finance, did his own Master's dissertation defending socio-economics of the USSR, before the USSR collapsed and was an embarrassment for cocktail communists everywhere. The guy who calls economic shots is literally a communist fanboy.
Carlos Lupi, also Minister, is literally one of the vice presidents of the Socialist International . The word socialist is literally in the name, and he is VP of it worldwide!
2 - CONGRESS:
The opposition is in clear minority in in both chambers[1]. The opposition has almost a 2:1 deficit vs the Government inside the Chamber of Deputies
3 - MACRO:
The president's own party is in an alliance with the communist party[2]
