Justice reform and independence, the challenges of the new judicial year in Bolivia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivia inaugurated the judicial year 2022 to consolidate the “transformation of justice” to overcome evils such as procedural delays or corruption and take steps towards its independence.

The event held in Sucre, the country’s capital, was attended by the Bolivian president, Luis Arce, as head of the National Executive, and the leading representatives of the Parliament, the Judiciary, and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

During his speech, the Bolivian president referred to the need to “objectively evaluate” the situation of the administration of justice through an “objective and dispassionate x-ray” to make changes through a “judicial reform”.

“Reality shows us that the delay of justice, corruption, and the enormous procedural burden to attend to the population are the main ills of justice,” he remarked.

Arce pointed out that there are problems “that are repeated every year” due to an “obsolete judicial management model that is discriminatory, insensitive and exclusive” that “benefits a few”.

The head of State detailed that in the last two years, only 46% of the cases have been solved, that 62% of the courts are in the country’s ten largest cities, and that 175 municipalities out of more than 300 “do not have” courts. Hence, he estimated that around 1.3 million people “do not have access to justice”.

He also identified other problems such as the fact that 65% of those deprived of liberty, some 11,000 people, are pre-trial detainees without sentences, that there are no sentences in cases of femicides and infanticides, and that there are “obsolete laws”.

REFORM AND INDEPENDENCE

Arce spoke of the “challenge of reforming justice and prevent it from falling into the abyss of mistrust and condemnation” of the country’s population and that it should be developed “with the participation of all sectors” with solutions that are “adapted to the new realities”.

He precisely mentioned that one of the most relevant steps would take place with the “justice summit”, scheduled for March, which will have the task of finding consensus around the “preliminary work” that was developed with different instances to set a “critical path” then to make the necessary transformations.

The Bolivian president pointed out that the changes to the justice system will be carried out “with full respect for constitutional principles” such as judicial independence and coordination between powers.

During his intervention, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Ricardo Torres, said that judicial independence also depends on the respect that must exist between the organs of the State and the “will” of “actors” to avoid referring to the work carried out in each instance.

Torres identified the lack of a “judicial career”, the inexistence of a “disciplinary regime”, the inadequate work of the School of Judges, “vacancies” in crucial positions as elements that have to be corrected in addition to the need for a budget “according to reality”.

Torres warned that among the proposals for judicial reform, there are “extreme” and “purely political” proposals and that it is necessary to identify those that are “institutional”.

In addition to this, Arce referred to the “unavoidable mission” of responding to the demand for “memory, truth, and justice” for the events of the political crisis of 2019 in which there were at least 38 deaths among sectors related to the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) and opposition.

The president said that “especially” this happens for “the victims of the massacres” of Sacaba and Senkata, where twenty civilians died during the interim administration of former president Jeanine Áñez.

Judicial reform is a recommendation that has been put forward by bodies such as the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), which investigated rights violations between September and December 2019.

The situation of justice administration and its reform has been a claim of the Bolivian opposition that has considered its use as a mechanism of political persecution to remove leaders or former authorities against the Government.