Why does landlocked Bolivia have a navy?

Why not? Doesn't Brazil have a justice system? 

It's one of the oldest jokes on Latin America, and one that Brazilians know only too well. So this continent-sized nation wasn't exactly holding its breath last month when the Brazilian Supreme Court took up the corruption charges against former government higherups, who stand accused of trying to buy off half of the nation's congress. After all, it's hard to think of a high court anywhere that has heard a case as sprawling and serpentine as this one: 11,000 pages of testimony, 40 suspects, and a trail of funny money running from Brasília to the Bahamas. Never mind that the defendants are lifelong confidants and cronies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the seemingly flak-proof Brazilian president who sailed to reelection last year in the teeth of the so-called monthly payoff scandal (or Ali Baba's den goes to congress, as one political commentator put it). Or that seven of the 11 justices were appointed by Lula himself.

But enter Joaquim Barbosa (pictured), the 52-year-old justice who shepherded the case and wrote the high court's final decision. Low profile and polyglot (as well as his native Portuguese he speaks English, German and French) Barbosa is the Supreme Court's only black justice in a not-so-color blind country. He tells of once being mistaken for a parking attendant at fancy Brazilian restaurants. Now he is hailed as one of the country's most courageous jurists. Barbosa's opinion, announced on August 27, and which ran to over 400 pages, was to issue formal charges against all 40 suspects on 113 counts, ranging from fraud to money laundering. The other ten justices concurred.

But that's just round one. Because of Brazil's quaintly lenient rules for executive privilege -- by which elected officials from mayor on up can only be tried by the highest court of the land -- the same panel of judges will now weigh the criminal charges. If the defendants are found guilty, they could face two to 16 years in jail. Since Brazil has never seen such a high-ranking cabal actually stand trial before, it's anyone's guess what will happen. But the fact that rainmakers will be made to answer to the justice system at all is already something of a victory.