All posts tagged Judicial System

Peru: Final Showdown at the Congress Corral

By Carlos Monge*

President Vizcarra speaking to Foreign Press in meeting

Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra meeting with Foreign Press/ Flickr/ Creative Commons/ https://bit.ly/2noHE1m

Peruvian President Vizcarra’s proposals to move up general elections from 2021 to 2020 and reform the election of new members of the highest court in the country – and Congress’s rejection of them – have sparked a crisis that has led him to dissolve Congress and call for new elections to replace it. The Congressional majority, led by the followers of Keiko Fujimori (in pre-trial “preventive prison” on corruption charges) and Alan García (who committed suicide in April to avoid arrest on similar charges), had rejected a series of reform proposals, although polls have consistently shown massive support for them and rejection of the Congress’s obstructionism. Events of the following 48 hours resemble a comedy script as the two sides faced off.

  • On September 30, the Congress rejected Vizcarra’s push for improvement of procedures for the election of new members of the Constitutional Tribunal – proceeding to elect a new member to its liking – and rejected his request for a Confidence Vote. In response, based on the constitutional prerogative the President has if a Confidence Vote is denied two times (his predecessor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, PPK, had also been denied one), Vizcarra dissolved the Congress and called for new elections to replace it. At the same exact time, Congress granted the Confidence Vote, but with new rules to be put in place afterwards. In the evening it “temporarily” removed Vizcarra from office, swearing in Vice President Mercedes Aráoz as “temporary” President.
  • On October 1, Aráoz – who the previous evening said she “accepted the [temporary presidency] with fortitude” – explained that she was not really President, said that her appointment was merely political symbolism, and declined the appointment. In the meantime, Vizcarra received the support of the Armed Forces and the associations of Regional Governors and Municipal Mayors, swore in a new Cabinet, and formally called for new elections in January 2020.

The confrontation is more than just a short-term political dispute between a President and opposition parties. It reflects the resistance of liberal and leftist politicians, journalists, church sectors, honest public officials, and social and citizen platforms to the total takeover of the state by a coalition of corrupt politicians, illegal economies, conservative religious groups, and corrupt businessmen. These latter groups have long had representatives in different parliamentary benches, ministries, and regional and local governments. But they did not have the direct total control that, according to many observers, they would have had if Keiko Fujimori, daughter of disgraced President Alberto Fujimori, won the 2016 elections.

  • Keiko lost the very tight race to PPK but never accepted her defeat. Her party devoted itself to bringing the PPK government down by compiling evidence of his involvement in corrupt practices in previous stints as minister and prime minister. But the same corruption scandal that helped them remove PPK in March 2018 became a threat for both Keiko and former President García – and emboldened Vizcarra to move away from initial conciliatory policies. The President embraced a strong anti-corruption agenda, confronted the Congress, and won enormous popular support.
  • The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Congressional attempt to capture the court through an internal election method in which parties presented their candidates in a 30-minute meeting and scheduled a vote for a few days later, with no public scrutiny of the candidates, no public hearings, or actions that could define the process as transparent and accountable.

Vizcarra has survived last week’s showdown, but the constitutional crisis and its underlying tensions are far from over. Leaders of the dissolved Congress insist that the new member of the court they elected last Monday be sworn in, so that a more conservative Constitutional Tribunal decides on the fate of Vizcarra´s move. But it could take months for the Tribunal to reach a decision. Until a new Congress is elected, Vizcarra will legislate via Urgency Decrees, without knowing the composition of the new Congress and his relationship with it.

  • The dispute over the narrative of events is raging. For some, paradoxically aligned with the Fujimori heirs leading the Congress, Vizcarra has staged a coup similar to that of Alberto Fujimori in 1992 and thus become a dictator. For others, he has proceeded according to the Constitution and in defense of democracy. The best hope now is that the country can deliver a new, democratically elected Congress that will collaborate in completing the pending judicial and political reforms and in supporting the ongoing anti-corruption investigations. If it succeeds, Peru will be a better country and have something to celebrate during the July 2021 Bicentenary of its Independence.

October 8, 2019

* Carlos Monge is an Advisor at the Natural Resource Governance Institute in Lima.

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by clalsstaff on October 8, 2019  •  Permalink
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Latin America: The Perils of Judicial Reform

by Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and Andrea Castagnola*

Former President of Chile and current head of the United Nations OHCHR Michelle Bachelet addresses the Chilean Supreme Court in 2015

Former President of Chile and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet addresses the Chilean Supreme Court in 2015/ Gobierno de Chile/ Flickr/ Creative Commons/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gobiernodechile/22180910394

Conventional wisdom that institutional reforms always strengthen the judiciary is not supported by the facts. A constitutionally fixed number of justices is widely thought to make “court packing” more difficult, and longer terms in office supposedly protect judges from partisan trends. Nomination processes that involve multiple actors should produce moderate justices; high requirements for impeachment should protect judges from legislative threats; and explicit powers of judicial review should assure politicians’ compliance with judicial decisions. Our research, however, shows that institutional reforms often undermine judicial independence, even when they appear to improve constitutional design along these crucial dimensions.

  • Countries with longer democratic traditions such as the United States, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay display low turnover: few justices leave office in any given year, and their exits appear to follow a random pattern. But countries like Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Paraguay – all of which nominally protect judges from political pressures – display abrupt patterns of judicial turnover. On repeated occasions, a majority of the court has left in the same year, allowing for a complete reshuffle. About half of all exits in our sample took place in years when more than 50 percent of a court left at once, mostly due to political pressures.
  • Some constitutions create turnover by design. Until 2001, for example, Honduran justices served for four years, concurrent with the presidential term. However, less than 30 percent of court reshuffles can be explained by constitutional rules. In Argentina, even though the Constitution grants Supreme Court justices life tenure, presidents forced a majority of justices out of office in 1947, 1955, 1958, 1966, 1973, 1976, and 1983.

Our project analyzed the tenure of almost 3,500 justices serving in Supreme Courts and Constitutional Tribunals in the Western Hemisphere since 1900. We found – against our expectations – that several constitutional reforms increased the likelihood of turnover in the high courts. Because major reforms produce turnover in Supreme Courts and Constitutional Tribunals, they create new opportunities for parties to appoint loyal judges and politicize the courts.

  • Constitutional reforms that involve more actors in the nomination of justices (i.e., “multilateralize” the process) also increase turnover in the high courts. Reforms that constrain the removal of justices (for example, requiring supermajorities for their impeachment) paradoxically have prompted the exit of justices in democracies. Constitutional reforms that granted courts explicit powers of judicial review of government actions increased judicial instability, and reforms that grant life tenure to justices on average created turnover in the high courts, particularly when adopted under dictatorships.
  • Two basic reasons seem to explain these paradoxes. In the short run, reformers exercise (and abuse) “constituent” power, restructuring the courts in ways that force the resignation of incumbent justices or create new vacancies. In the long run, formal constitutional protections for the judiciary create a strategic trap. If parties can use informal instruments, such as threats and bribes, to induce the resignation of judges, their incentives to deploy those blunt instruments are greater when justices are completely isolated from other forms of political influence.

Some features of constitutional design – including life terms and supermajority requirements to impeach judges – do explicitly protect justices against purges. Other constitutional features, however, create incentives for the political capture of high courts. Greater powers of judicial review, for example, make courts politically relevant and, therefore, more important targets. A constitutionally fixed number of seats prevents court “packing” but encourages purging as an alternative. Appointment procedures controlled by the President and Congress make purges profitable for them. Irrespective of their stated goals, constitutional amendments and replacements offer a window of opportunity to reorganize the composition of the judiciary.

  • Judicial purges occasionally pursue desirable goals, like the removal of judges who have been corrupt or obstructed transitions to democracy, but a recurrent pattern of politicized replacements inevitably produces a weak judiciary, creating an unstable interpretation of the laws and the Constitution.

July 9, 2019

* Aníbal Pérez-Liñán teaches political science and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and Andrea Castagnola teaches judicial politics at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, in Buenos Aires. Their project was supported by the National Science Foundation. Conclusions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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by clalsstaff on July 9, 2019  •  Permalink
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Colombia: Flaws in Transitional Justice Threaten Peace Accord Implementation

By Néstor Raúl Correa*

Acuerdo de Paz Colombia Feb.15.2019 Flickr

People gather at Bogota’s Bolivar main square on September 26, 2016, to celebrate the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). / Flickr / Creative Commons

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a central part of the Colombia Peace Accord signed in 2016, continues to stumble and is seriously, if not fatally, undermining the justice component for accountability by combatants of both sides of the conflict.  In essence a scheme of transitional justice, the JEP offered a special legal framework and exceptional judicial treatment to create the necessary conditions for peace after decades of massive, systematic violations of human rights.

  • The Accord would not only produce temporary justice; it would be negotiated justice – and it would build on other positive results such as the guerrillas’ surrender of arms and subordination to the political regime it had sought to destroy. It was centered on a quid pro quo: “You give me your weapons and, in exchange, I’ll give you softer penalties and allow you to participate in politics.”  One of three institutions established to promote reconciliation, the JEP’s mandate was to guarantee the rights of the victims.

The Peace Accord in general and the JEP specifically, however, have stumbled over multiple obstacles, in particular the opposition of segments of the Colombian populace that have not forgotten the crimes of the FARC and are interfering with the implementation of the JEP.  While every political faction has constructed its own narrative surrounding the Accord, the most radical and divisive is that of the political right.  Various factors have distorted the role of the JEP to the point that it is no longer a trustworthy reference for the conflicting parties, the victims, or citizens in general.

  • Critical constitutional and legal reforms necessary for the JEP to function, which were already thought to take at least four years, were further delayed when the Legislature diluted or postponed accountability of combatants while providing them quick relief for their crimes, especially in Amnesty Law 1820 of 2016.
  • Having eight units (three courts, four sections and one prosecutorial office) and 38 judges, the JEP was practically guaranteed to have lengthy and convoluted proceedings – a Kafkaesque labyrinth. When a guerrilla defendant has previously served in the military or as paramilitary, the process plunges into chaos.  Further complicating matters, the right has been concerned about the neutrality of current judges in the JEP, arguing that it was conceived as a FARC justice mechanism.
  • JEP management and decision-making – dominated by a handful of judges since 2018 – have become burdened with inefficiencies long present in Colombia´s justice system. Budget squabbles, bloated staffs, contract disputes, and even controversy over holidays and vacation time have become distractions.

As a result, the hope of victims on both sides of the conflict that light sanctions for those responsible for major crimes would be counterbalanced by integral and sustainable protection for themselves has vanished.  Nearly 7 million Colombians were displaced by the internal conflict (out of a total of 8,794,542 registered victims).  JEP dysfunction has denied them their voice in the processes against those who victimized them.  Victims were barred, for example, from attending the hearing of an Army Reserve general accused of murdering innocent civilians he claimed were guerrilla members killed in combat (falsos positivos), while a senior FARC commander firmly rejected victim participation as inconsistent with the Accord.  Former FARC combatants have not been held rigorously accountable.  They move freely within the country, and some FARC commanders remain in hiding and have never presented themselves.  This has further undermined civil society confidence in the JEP and the Accord.

The flaws in Colombia’s transitional justice provide valuable lessons for future peace processes.  The whole process should remain simple and expeditious, with fewer sentencing judges and proceedings.  A competent management unit, independent from the judges, should take charge of administration, including core information systems.  The role of foreign judges, particularly in cases of internal conflicts that have somehow been tainted or affect a vast number of citizens, should be increased, clarified, and protected because of the credibility, legitimacy, and independence they can bring.  It is also critical to avoid creating false expectations among victims, particularly regarding their role in judicial hearings.  An efficient, transparent judicial process provides the best guarantees of justice and effective remedies to victims and civil society.

February 15, 2019

*Néstor Raúl Correa is former Executive Secretary of JEP, a former magistrate, and currently a professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.

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by clalsstaff on February 15, 2019  •  Permalink
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Bolivia: Locked in Its Past

By Carlos Malamud*

The International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice in The Hague. / International Court of Justice / Wikimedia

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s rejection of Bolivia’s case against Chile over access to the Pacific Ocean shocked Bolivian public opinion – and was a significant blow to President Evo Morales.  The ICJ judgment, issued on October 1, countered the beliefs of practically every Bolivian, educated since childhood that the Chilean port of Antofagasta was theirs.  In the Bolivians’ calculus, the complaint they brought to The Hague was already a compromise: they didn’t demand new borders or sovereignty, but rather argued that Chile had an obligation to negotiate a settlement.

  • The ICJ’s decision – by a vote of 12 to three – that Chile had no obligation to negotiate underscored, once again, that the Morales government had stirred up unrealistic expectations. While Morales, who was in The Hague for the announcement, declared that “Bolivia will never give up,” his Chilean counterpart, Sebastián Piñera, lamented that the ICJ case “made us waste five years which could have been spent building a healthy relationship between the two countries.”  Nationalism permeated both sides’ positions, but the Chilean government showed greater restraint, even if demonstrators in Antofagasta did show certain triumphalism after the verdict was announced.
  • In terms of politics, Morales was more ambitious preceding the Court’s decision than Piñera. The Bolivian president’s lawsuit wasn’t just about territory; he had the clear political objective of keeping himself in power indefinitely.  Had he won the case in The Hague, his ability to remain in office would have been practically guaranteed – as a national hero and savior for having regained Bolivia’s access to the Pacific Ocean.

The Bolivian government’s rhetoric has hurt its image.  In the week before the verdict was announced, Morales’s vice president, Álvaro García Linera, in his well-established role as mobilizer and opportunist, spoke of “Chilean aggression” and predicted a “major defeat” for Chilean diplomacy at the ICJ.  In his customary paternalistic style, he called for full compliance with the Court’s decision (although he himself did not do so later).  After the decision, Morales acknowledged that the Court said Chile was not obligated to negotiate, but – instead of clearing the way for better relations in the future – renewed his call for negotiations.  The Chilean government is not about to talk about anything unless Bolivia demonstrates that it is serious.  One important move would be for Bolivia to rescind, unilaterally and immediately, the suspension of diplomatic relations with Chile in 1978.

Bolivia’s defeat has already had serious political consequences.  It is a serious blow to the re-election aspirations of Evo Morales in 2019, which he was pursuing despite its unconstitutionality as reinforced by the defeat of a constitutional amendment allowing a third consecutive term in a referendum on February 21, 2016.  It also prompted ex-President Carlos Mesa – a rival with good chances of success – to announce his candidacy in elections next year.  Morales has already lashed out at Mesa, linking him to the “Chilean oligarchy” and speaking of his “betrayal of the fatherland.”

  •  Beyond the ICJ judgment, Bolivia will eventually have to free itself of the isolation – mental as well as geographic – that prevents it from finding better ways of promoting its interests. Bolivia has means – in Peru and Chile toward the Pacific, and in Santa Cruz toward the Atlantic – with which to find solutions and reinforce its potential for growth.  But that entails lowering the flag of nationalism, something that is still unclear they’re prepared to do.

October 10, 2018

*Carlos Malamud is Senior Analyst for Latin America at the Elcano Royal Institute, and Professor of Latin American History at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid.  A version of this article was originally published in El Heraldo de México.

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by clalsstaff on October 10, 2018  •  Permalink
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Honduras: MACCIH at Two Years

By Charles T. Call*

Photo of MACCIH and OAS representatives holding a banner with OAS logo

MACCIH and OAS representatives /Flickr / Creative Commons

Halfway through its four-year mandate, the Mission in Support of the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) has scored some important successes but confronts growing sabotage from segments of Honduras’s political elite determined to undermine the Mission’s work.

  • After months of negotiation, President Juan Orlando Hernández – under intense political pressure because of his campaign’s role in a scandal involving $330 million stolen from the country’s Institute of Social Security – and OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro agreed to form MACCIH, and the Honduran Congress approved it in April 2016. The broad purpose was “to pursue a comprehensive approach to fighting corruption and impunity in Honduras by strengthening the institutional system and increasing civil society participation.”
  • Although inspired by the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), MACCIH was not given the same power as CICIG to “co-prosecute” cases with the Attorney General’s office. In the name of strengthening national institutions, only Honduran prosecutors could indict and prosecute cases.  The OAS’s weakness (compared to the UN) and the configuration of MACCIH – with four in-country coordinators operating under confusing allegiances and with smaller staffs and budgets than CICIG – were also problems.  The organization’s dispersed mandates also detracted from the central outcome desired by the population – corrupt top officials in jail.

Nevertheless, MACCIH got off to a strong, if slow, start.  Just six months after its launching, it contributed to a new “Clean Politics Law” that increased transparency of election financing and created a unit within the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to monitor and report on infractions.  MACCIH also worked with the Inspector General to discontinue the practice of “conciliation” in corruption cases, whereby charges could be reduced or dropped if officials returned the stolen goods.

  • The Mission also made headway on high-profile cases that it selected, including the convictions of two ex-Vice Ministers, a Judicial Council magistrate, and nine others. It gained indictments in its two highest-profile cases – against five congressional deputies and against former First Lady Rosa Elena de Lobo.  These cases, and this month’s “Pandora” case implicating several current former legislators and officials, sent a message that top elected officials were not immune from prosecution.  The government’s new Special Prosecutorial Unit against Impunity for Corruption (UFECIC), reporting directly to Attorney-General Óscar Chinchilla, proved an effective partner.

Especially since elections last November – whose process and outcome were widely questioned – the government and political elites have redoubled efforts to clip MACCIH’s wings in multiple underhanded ways.  The Congress has failed to act on important laws and, more blatantly, passed what was dubbed the “Impunity Pact,” which effectively blocked MACCIH’s jurisdiction over congressional misdeeds and postponed any prosecutorial action for misuse of funds until the High Court of Auditors finishes an investigation likely to take three years.

  • President Hernández is part of the whole-of-government campaign to undermine MACCIH. For three months, he sat on the nomination of Brazilian former prosecutor Luis Antonio Marrey Guimarães, nominated by the OAS to head MACCIH after Special Representative Jiménez Mayor resigned in February, before approving it this week.  The future of MACCIH was further clouded by a ruling in May by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, on a case brought by members of Congress, finding that a 2017 agreement creating UFECIC was unconstitutional.

Given the judicial, legislative, and executive assaults on its powers, MACCIH confronts serious challenges as it commences its third year of operations. Special Representative and Spokesperson, OAS Secretary General Almagro appears reluctant to permit an autonomous head of mission.  Despite declarations of support, the United States and other funders are showing skepticism over MACCIH’s viability, complicating efforts to move forward and recruit for many key positions.

Most importantly, even if MACCIH survives legal challenges and its powers to investigate congressional corruption are reinstated, its success depends crucially on the Attorney-General selected to succeed Chinchilla, whose five-year term expires in September. Now that the governing party has flexed its muscles in the courts and Congress, the Public Ministry remains one of the very few potential checks on executive power – and central to the success of MACCIH and other anti-corruption efforts.  If the United States and other donors continue to believe that Honduras needs to reduce corruption and give democratic rule a fighting chance, they need to step up their diplomatic support for an independent Attorney-General and functional MACCIH.

 June 21, 2018

* Chuck Call teaches International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University, where he directs a Center for Latin American & Latino Studies project analyzing MACCIH and anti-corruption efforts in Honduras. A report from that project, launched at a public event in Tegucigalpa on June 21, is available HERE.

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by clalsstaff on June 21, 2018  •  Permalink
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Colombia: Effective Transitional Justice?

By Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias*

A large open square surrounded by buildings in Colombia

A view of the Colombian Congress building. / Fernando Garcia / Flicr / Creative Commons

Just hours before its “fast-track” authority for such legislation expired, the Colombian Congress in late November approved legislation establishing the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) with a weaker mandate than envisioned in the peace accord.  It covers only armed combatants – and excludes the civilians who financed the paramilitaries and other irregular forces – and falls short of enshrining the authority of the JEP magistrates.  This outcome was the result of obstructionism not only by the opposition parties led by the Centro Democrático of former President Álvaro Uribe and its Conservative Party allies; current President Juan Manuel Santos’ political partners in Cambio Radical, including leader Germán Vargas Lleras, broke with the government several months ago and made criticism of the peace agreement a centerpiece of the presidential campaign.  After much wrangling, the watered-down proposal for JEP passed on November 29.

  • The Constitutional Court still has to rule on the constitutionality of the new law, but most provisions apparently face no opposition. The Court unanimously approved the law giving Congress the authority to form the JEP and ruled on some sensitive measures.  It confirmed, for example, that members of the FARC could participate in politics without first being judged by the JEP as long as they promise to submit to the tribunal.  The Court also said that the JEP will determine on a case-by-case basis if FARC politicians’ responsibilities are compatible with fulfilment of their sentences.  It left many details, however, to the Tribunal.
  • The most controversial point in the Court’s decision that provided the framework for the Congressional vote is that civilians and state agents outside the armed forces will not be under the JEP’s jurisdiction unless they opt to be (such as when they expect more leniency than from the ordinary judicial system). That includes businessmen and politicians who financed paramilitarism – a provision that the opposition and Cambio Radical fought hard for.  (During legal proceedings involving demobilized paramilitaries under the Justice and Peace Law, former combatants mentioned their civilian sponsors more than 11,000 times.)  Victims and human rights organizations have called the decision an attack on their interests and stated it will bring only more impunity in the post-conflict era.

The Congress also took steps that, on balance, weakened the JEP’s authorities.  It excluded from JEP processes any FARC members accused of sexual crimes against minors.  The ordinary judicial system will have greater difficulty investigating and corroborating facts and, combined with delays and problems with impunity, could very well fail to satisfy the rights of either victims or perpetrators.  Another change made by Congress was to disqualify JEP magistrates who had worked as lawyers on cases involving human rights and armed conflict during the last five years.  Critics claim this article is illegal because it changes the rules of the game months after the magistrates were selected based on specific requirements such as knowledge and professional experience in human rights law.  Even though the Constitutional Court most likely will declare the provision unconstitutional, the fact that Cambio Radical proposed these disqualifications raises the prospect of more tensions in coming months and the continued stigmatization of human rights defenders at time that many face security threats in the country.

Rhetoric during the peace negotiations and subsequent political skirmishes that the victims were front and center in the formation of the JEP is proving to ring hollow.  The JEP starts its mission weakened both by the Constitutional Court and now by Congress.  The magistrates will face strong political pressures, and the exclusion from proceedings of the sponsors of paramilitary violence, which during the war at times surpassed by far that of FARC combatants, already complicates matters.  Ensuring the rights of the victims, providing justice, and determining the appropriate role for former guerrillas in politics and their reincorporation into society will be no easy task.  It will be up to the Colombian people, through popular vote in elections next March, whether a successor government will improve implementation of the peace agreement and the administration of justice, truth, and reparation to the war’s eight million victims.

December 13, 2017

* Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Politics and Conflict Studies at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and a CLALS Fellow.

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Lula Convicted: End of an Era?

By Anthony W. Pereira*

35075875073_62df9e06f4_k

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva / Jeso Carneiro / Flickr / Creative Commons

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s conviction last week on corruption charges was more than a legal decision and could mark a political watershed – the beginning of the end of “Lula-ism,” a political and redistributive pact that lasted from 2003 until 2010 which Lula has been offering to revive as a candidate in the 2018 presidential elections.  On July 12, Federal Judge Sergio Moro found Lula guilty of taking a bribe and laundering money, sentenced him to nine years and six months in prison, and banned him from taking public office for seven years.  This judgment, the first to convict an ex-president in Brazil, was the result of the Carwash anti-corruption investigations begun in March 2014.

  • The decision will be appealed to the Federal court for the Fourth Region in Porto Alegre. This court will probably rule on the case before the 2018 filing deadline for presidential candidates (yet to be decided, but usually in mid-August), and is expected to uphold the conviction.  Lula would be legally barred from being a candidate at that point, although he might mount some sort of challenge to such a ruling.  Lula’s strategy for now is to press on with his campaign, to criticize his conviction as political persecution that was not based on evidence, and to portray himself as a man of the people capable of taking on the “elite.”

Lula still has great strengths.  The basis of Lula-ism has been his personal appeal – he captured twice as many voters as did his political party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), in 2002 and 2006 – boosted by economic forces and public policies that raised the living standards of the poor.  With his finely-tuned ability to communicate to ordinary people, he showed that it was possible to both grow the economy and redistribute its fruits.  His government reduced poverty significantly, offered the poor inclusion in the consumer society and the chance of social mobility, and even achieved a modest reduction in income inequality – while promoting the interests of big companies.

  • But he may not have achieved the long-term realignment his supporters claim. Lula-ism proper only lasted for eight years, the length of his two presidential terms.  His hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, ruled for almost six more years, but by the last year of her first term, poverty had stopped declining.  The current government of President Michel Temer has passed a constitutional amendment freezing federal spending in real terms for 20 years; the measure does not automatically reduce spending on social programs, but in the absence of tax increases that is what it has produced.  Temer’s own bribery scandal may take him down, perhaps within the next couple of weeks, but his policies raise a more fundamental question:  whether Brazil can return to economic redistribution, diminishing the severe inequality that still marks its society, without Lula-ism.

The organs of anti-corruption investigation and control that have challenged Lula, Dilma, and Temer – the media, the Federal Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the judiciary – are neither consistently politically neutral nor free of corruption themselves.  They are not a Deus ex machina that can free the Brazilian polity of corruption all by themselves.  For that, Brazil needs political reform, further changes in at least some of the rules that regulate elections and governance, a realignment of incentives faced by elected officials, state bureaucrats, business people, trade unions, and the electorate.

  • The PT and the other two most important parties, however, seem incapable of renovation despite leaders’ awareness of the low level of legitimacy with which they are viewed by voters. The PT has few viable new leaders and is clinging to Lula’s candidacy as its only hope of a return to power.  The Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) still nominally supports Temer.  And Temer’s own party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), is torn between defending the president in an act of self-preservation, and fearing the wrath of the voters in 2018.

Brazilians face a “trilemma”: they yearn for the three long hoped-for goals of sustained and successful anti-corruption investigations, political reform, and a return to economic redistribution.  Achieving two of those goals at the same time, let alone three, seems impossible.  The 2018 elections therefore will reveal a country in which anti-corruption investigations continue to knock major figures out of the political game, while political reform and economic redistribution are postponed.  The old cliché that Brazil is the country of the future takes on a new meaning in light of this somber possibility.

July 17, 2017

*Anthony W. Pereira is a Professor and Director of the Brazil Institute at King’s College London.

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Venezuela- OAS: New Chapter in a Long Story

By Stefano Palestini Céspedes*

Special Meeting of the Permanent Council, April 3, 2017

On April 3, a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council voted to condemn Venezuela’s action that allows the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly. / Juan Manuel Herrera/ OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro seems determined to validate critics’ claims that the separation of powers in Venezuela has been breached, thereby strengthening diplomatic efforts to force him to reverse course.  After the OAS Permanent Council met for two days to discuss Secretary General Almagro’s call for Caracas’ suspension, Venezuelan courts on March 29 authorized the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly, and to limit the immunity of the members of the parliament.  The action reinvigorated an exhausted domestic opposition and further infuriated international observers.  Two days later, the TSJ overturned the two rulings after Maduro, casting himself as a mediator between competing constitutional powers, requested it.  These erratic actions signaled the worsening erosion of the rule of law as well as the divisions in the government and the Bolivarian movement.

  • The reversal did not take the edge off OAS General Secretary Almagro’s and others’ condemnation of the power grab as an autogolpe or “self-coup.” The Inter-American Democratic Charter was designed in 2001 precisely to provide the OAS with instruments to deter self-coups in the aftermath of those carried out by Alberto Fujimori (Peru) and Jorge Serrano (Guatemala) in the 1990s.

The TSJ decisions and Venezuela’s defiance didn’t put Almagro’s suspension efforts over the top, but the Permanent Council is now much more actively involved in the crisis.  Venezuela has isolated itself within the Permanent Council.  Speaking at the Council, its delegation severely criticized individual member states the day before the TSJ decisions.  Chile and Peru recalled their ambassadors for consultation after it.  Ecuador, an ally since the time of Hugo Chávez, distanced itself from Maduro.  On April 1, MERCOSUR invoked the Protocol of Ushuaia – the group’s democracy clause – against Venezuela, and it joined Colombia and Chile in a forceful public statement on behalf of UNASUR.  Mexico, historically a jealous guardian of the principle of non-intervention, has assumed the leadership in holding Venezuela accountable for its undemocratic practices.  As a result, the Permanent Council on April 3 approved a resolution condemning the TSJ decisions and committing to “undertake as necessary further diplomatic initiatives to foster the restoration of the democratic institutional system,” including convening a ministerial meeting.

Building a consensus for tougher action in the Permanent Council will be difficult, however.  Last week’s resolution was approved by 19 member states, but four abstained and 10 were absent.  Any proposal to suspend Venezuela will require two-thirds of the members’ affirmative votes.  Although there is still a long way to go to make the OAS part of the solution of the Venezuelan crisis, the General Secretary’s activism has set an important precedent in rallying a majority of states in the Americas to come together to discuss a member’s erosion of democratic principles and institutions – and to condemn the non-democratic actions of a democratically-elected government.  This is a first for the organization, and it is a big step toward fulfilling the original purpose of the drafters of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

April 10, 2017

* Stefano Palestini Céspedes is a CLALS Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he specializes in international organizations and regional governance.

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by clalsstaff on April 10, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on April 10, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/04/10/venezuela-oas-new-chapter-in-a-long-story/

MACCIH: An Early Progress Report

By Chuck Call*

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Juan Jiménez Mayor, Spokesman of the MACCIH Mission in Honduras, presented an update about MACCIH at the OAS in December 2016. / Juan Manuel Herrera, OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

The OAS “Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras” (MACCIH) approaches its first anniversary in April with some gains and many challenges.  Launched after months of negotiations with the government of President Juan Orlando Hernández, MACCIH was created partly in response to widespread street protests by the Indignados (the “Outraged”), angered that the president’s campaign had benefitted from $300 million embezzled by officials of the Social Security Institute (IHSS).  Hernández was widely believed to accept the mission only because his tenure in office – and a possible second term – were in danger.

  • MACCIH was inspired by Guatemala’s CICIG, the UN-backed commission supporting that country’s judicial institutions, but Hernández insisted on major differences. He consented only to a mission of the OAS, generally seen as weaker than the United Nations.  MACCIH is weaker than CICIG in that it cannot initiate its own case investigations and must channel all its investigative and prosecutorial work through Honduran authorities.  (CICIG enjoys full investigative police powers and can initiate its own wiretaps and surveillance.)  MACCIH is headed in-country by a “spokesman” for the OAS Secretary-General, who nominally leads the mission from Washington, and its $2 million first-year budget has been only about one-sixth that of CICIG’s annual budget.

As a result, MACCIH opened to skepticism that its slow start hasn’t dispelled.  Its investigations have produced virtually no corruption-related arrests or prosecutions.  Setting up the office took much of 2016.  The head of criminal investigations only arrived in the summer, and the public security office only opened this month.  In contrast, a Honduran Police Reform Commission has sacked over 3,000 police officers.  Civil society organizations complain of MACCIH’s lack of impact, and a novel “observatory” comprising academic institutions and civil society groups remains ill-defined.  MACCIH’s decision not take up the investigation of the high-profile murder of environmental rights activist Berta Cáceres has seemed to sideline the mission from a case that emblemizes impunity, even if it seems not to involve far-reaching corruption.

  • However, MACCIH has scored some wins. It has embarked on a handful of complex corruption cases, including the IHSS case that sparked its creation.  The mission helped Honduran prosecutors prepare charges of arms possession against Mario Zelaya, the highest-profile suspect in the IHSS case, which kept him in jail long enough for more serious charges to be brought.  It helped secure two laws – to regulate campaign financing and to create a nationwide anti-corruption jurisdiction with its own selected judges and prosecutors.  MACCIH’s in-country leader, former Peruvian Prime Minister Juan Jiménez Mayor, has been forward-leaning in acting on his mandate.
  • MACCIH gained support in an early test late last year. In November, its concerns about several Hernández nominees to the Tribunal Superior de Cuentas, an audit court with special powers over corruption investigations, earned the ire of Honduran senior officials who complained to Secretary General Almagro.  The appointments were not altered, laying bare the mission’s limitations.  But Almagro stood by his organization’s analysis and role, with Jiménez Mayor emerging stronger as his special representative, not just his spokesman.
  • That same month, the board chair of Transparency International, José Ugaz, visited Honduras and urged civil society organizations to help ensure MACCIH’s success. Since then, they have showed a more positive attitude toward MACCIH, and more witnesses are now cooperating with the mission.

Comparisons between MACCIH with CICIG may arguably be unfair just one year out.  Observers recall that CICIG had difficulty showing impact in its initial investigations and was criticized as ineffectual.  Delivering on its ambitious mission to help curb corruption and impunity – in a country notorious for both – will be even harder.  However, the mission has accomplished as much as CICIG did in its first year in case investigations and legal reform.  Despite its limitations and slow start, MACCIH’s performance does not preclude obtaining far-reaching corruption convictions and strengthening the Honduran judicial system in coming years.  As civil society groups seem to be getting past their disappointment that their country did not get a CICIG, their collaboration will be crucial to the mission’s success.

March 13, 2017

* Chuck Call teaches International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University.

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by clalsstaff on March 13, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 13, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/03/13/maccih-an-early-progress-report/

Brazil’s Prison Violence Reflects Deeper Social Problem

By Andrew Johnson*

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An interim detention center in São Paulo, Brazil. / Rovena Rosa / Agência Brasil / Wikimedia / Creative Commons

It has been a horrific start to 2017 in the Brazilian prison system, and reversing the trend will take much more than increased public funding.  A wave of violence began on New Year’s Day when 56 inmates were killed during a riot inside of a penitentiary in Manaus.  A series of deadly inmate uprisings followed that massacre, bringing the number of inmates killed this month to 120.  Macabre images of inmates’ decapitated corpses strewn about prison yards captured on cellphone cameras and posted to the internet reminded Brazilians that overcrowding, a weak state presence, and institutionalized gang power have combined to make Brazilian prisons – with over 600,000 inmates – tinderboxes ready to ignite at almost any time.

  • During a year I spent conducting fieldwork inside jails and prisons in Rio de Janeiro for a book and documentary film in 2011, I saw inmates crammed into cells at three and four times their intended capacity. On the worst nights, men unable to find space on the floor or a concrete bunk tied their torsos to the steel gates with t-shirts and attempted to sleep while standing.
  • The Comando Vermelho and other gangs controlled entire cellblocks and used smuggled cell phones and strategic visitors to maintain regular contact with leadership. This communications capability and weapons caches inside the cellblocks enabled them to act as the de facto government. Prison guards knew that they were outgunned and outnumbered, and they knew their off-duty lives could be easily extinguished by an order initiated inside the prison.  January’s riots revealed how thin the veneer of state control really is inside.

Impassioned pleas, prompted by the riots, to reduce overcrowding and provide more resources to Brazil’s prison system are being launched in a time of austerity.  The Brazilian Senate recently approved legislation that could freeze public spending for the next 20 years.  Public investment would certainly reduce the likelihood of future riots, but the crisis in Brazil’s jails and penitentiaries is not caused simply by underfunding.  It is the result of decades of the state treating inmates, and the residents of the neighborhoods where most of them were born, as less than full citizens.  Pastor Antonio Carlos Costa, leader of the human rights organization Rio de Paz, told me the state and public’s reactions to the many thousands killed by the police and hundreds murdered in prisons each year were limited because “they are poor people, people with dark skin, people considered killable.  These are deaths that don’t shock us, they don’t make the Brazilian cry.”

There is no excuse or justifiable defense for the inmates involved in the 120 murders that occurred inside Brazilian prisons this month.  It was an inhumane slaughter propelled by gangs, greed, and a power grab.  But the solution to Brazil’s profoundly troubled prison system lies much deeper than increasing public spending or reducing overcrowding.  Refusing to treat people as killable, gang-affiliated or not, is a goal that may take decades and will require a commitment that is much costlier than any public spending intervention or new legislation.  Laws protecting human rights would have to be enforced for all Brazilians, including prisoners.  Law abiding middle and upper-class citizens would have to push back and no longer tolerate some of the world’s highest murder rates and jails where 80 men squeeze into a cell built for 20.  Transformation this profound would be a difficult message to sell on the campaign trail, but anything less than that sort of social and cultural change from the government and the public will fall short of fixing the deeply rooted problems with Brazil’s prison system.

January 27, 2017

*Andrew Johnson is a Research Associate with the Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Religious Competition and Creative Innovation (RCCI) initiative at the University of Southern California.

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by clalsstaff on January 27, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on January 27, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/01/27/brazils-prison-violence-reflects-deeper-social-problem/

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