RIO DE JANEIRO: Joaquim Barbosa has been elected as Chief Justice of the country's Supreme Court, becoming the first black person to hold that post in Brazil where more than half of its nearly 200 million population are of African descent. Currently the sole black person sitting on the bench of the top court, the 58-year-old was widely popular for his leading role in the nation's “trial of the century,” a high-profile bribery case against senior officials in former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government. He is also a leading public voice against discrimination and racial inequality. Barbosa was elected in a plenary session of the court on Wednesday and would start the two-year tenure in the next few weeks, replacing Carlos Ayres Britto, who will retire in November when he turns 70. Born to a poor family in the mining town of Paracatu in the southwest state of Minas Gerais, he studied at University of Brasilia to become a lawyer. He later received a Doctoral degree at the University of Paris and began his judicial career in 1984.
