This paper aims to discuss the principle of judicial impartiality and its dilemmas, based on empirical research conducted at the State Court of Rio de Janeiro, between 2008 and 2012. It is a description of the senses and representations that the professionals within the Brazilian justice system, especially judges, attribute to the concept of impartiality. The ignition for the resumption of the theme in this article stems from the divergence that has taken place in the legal field regarding the posture of former Judge Sergio Moro in conducting the proceedings of the "Lava Jato" (Car Wash) operation, especially after the repercussions of the leakage of his talks with the task force coordinator, Deltan Dallagnol, published by The Intercept as of June 2019. The research explains that judicial practices and judicial decisions are guided by subjective perceptions and particular senses of justice, which are revealed in the judges' personal interpretations of the meanings of the law, the facts and the evidence produced in the judicial process. And that, between the duty to appear to be impartial and the fact that they are human, judges move into a belief system of their own impartiality, discursively constructed by the field of law, and that functions as a structuring category of the judicial system, which displaces and centralizes in the judge the power to interpret and decide – in the present case, what it means to "do justice".
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