The National Board of Justice decided to suspend the ratification process of the President of the Judiciary, Elvia Barrios Alvarado until the conclusion of the disciplinary process that is taking place against her for hiring her husband in the National Elections Jury in 2015.
This same decision was made with the ratification processes of the former Prosecutor of the Nation, Pablo Sánchez Velarde and Supreme Judge Javer Arévalo Vela. The three magistrates will no longer go through the personal interview scheduled for November 2 and 3.
The suspension of the ratification process occurs after this afternoon, the Board will decide to interpret article 39 of the Regulations for the Procedure for Comprehensive Evaluation and Ratification of Judges of the Judicial Power and Prosecutors of the Public Ministry, approved on December 20, 2020 .
This norm established that when a judge or prosecutor registers one or several parallel disciplinary procedures before the JNJ, the ratification procedure may be suspended until the disciplinary resolution becomes final..
From now on, the aforementioned article 39 will say that not all ratification processes will be suspended where the magistrate has a disciplinary process in progress, but only when certain circumstances are met.
The conditions for suspending the ratification process are 1) when the investigation report with a dismissal proposal has been produced in the disciplinary process2) procedures where the Board has ordered the preventive suspension of the magistrate, 3) disciplinary procedures opened by the same Board, 4) abbreviated procedures where the preventive suspension of the judge or prosecutor has been ordered, 5) exceptional situations, duly founded.
In the recitals of the resolution issued by the Board, it is indicated that this decision is made “in order to avoid decisions that may be contradictory with respect to the same case, in both procedures.”
The process is tainted
The situation of the president of the Judicial Power, the supreme judge Arévalo and the former prosecutor of the Nation Pablo Sánchez are in the assumption of condition 1, since the investigative advisor Guillermo Thornberry Villarán has proposed the dismissal of the three for an alleged lack of ethics. }
However, this whole situation makes the decisions of the Board more obscure. Article 39 exists since 2020. It was approved by the same councilors who today decide interpret it. The The Board did not even require an interpretation or clarification to suspend the ratification processes, despite which they were summoned for a personal interview.
In the disciplinary process, the Board has summoned Elvia Barrios and Javier Arévalo to a discharge hearing next Tuesday, November 8. The former prosecutor of the Nation must appear for a hearing the following day, November 9.
It is understood that the ratification processes will be reactivated if the dismissal requests are rejected.. If the Board approves the dismissal, the magistrate is out of the judicial or prosecutorial career, therefore, there is no longer a ratification process.
The ratification seeks to determine if a magistrate is suitable to continue in the judicial or prosecutorial career. All incumbent judges and prosecutors go through this procedure every seven years.
The ratification processes for the rest of the supreme judges and prosecutors will continue as planned, although point 5 of the interpretation of article 39 leaves the possibility for the directors to suspend other ratification procedures at their discretion.
