In the first two months of 2022, the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has canceled the legal status of 40 non-profit associations, six of them —what’s more— they were confiscated without explanation, in an action that “did not respect due process” and lacks “legal justification,” Nicaraguan lawyers maintain.
Among the canceled associations are seven private universities, eight associations linked to foreign universities, four graduate associations, three associations of private schools, eleven local development and union organizations, and six foreign NGOs that had legal representation in Nicaragua. The regime indicates that all of them have failed to comply with their registration with the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) and, in some cases, of not registering as foreign agents.
However, leaders of canceled associations such as Sandra Ramos, from the María Elena Cuadra Movement of Working and Unemployed Women; and Adrián Meza, from the Paulo Freire University; They have indicated that each time they presented their records to Migob, the institution refused to receive the information and demanded new documents. Until finally the person in charge of the Department of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Civil Associations of Migob, Franya Urey Blandón, asked the National Assembly to cancel the organizations.
The lawyer and public notary, Martha Patricia Molina, appreciates that the massive cancellation of non-profit associations in Nicaragua and particularly the confiscation of the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua (Upoli), the Nicaraguan Popular University (Uponic), the Catholic University of the Dry Tropics (Ucatse), the Nicaraguan University of Humanistic Studies (Uneh), the Paulo Freire University (UPF) and some Fabretto centers; it is “something more political than legal”, because “it does not have a legal basis” and puts at risk the security of private property established in article 44 of the Political Constitution.
Real estate can only “be subject to expropriation in accordance with the Law, after payment in cash of fair compensation,” reads the third paragraph of article 44 of the Constitution. However, the State of Nicaragua did not pay any compensation to the owners of the universities and on February 7 the National Assembly approved Law 1108 or the Law to Create the University. Francisco Luis Espinoza Pineda; the law 1109 or Creative Law of the National Polytechnic University; Law 1110 or Law Creating the National Multidisciplinary University Ricardo Morales Avilés; in which they establish that the patrimony of these universities is everything that belonged to the canceled universities and they can claim the transfer and registration of the same “free of all taxes”.
“The confiscation of property is prohibited. Officials who violate this provision, will respond with their assets at all times for the damages inflicted, “continues article 44 of the Constitution.
Violations of due process against NGOs
The cancellation of non-profit associations “does not imply the confiscation of their assets”, as is being done at the moment, explains a second lawyer who requested anonymity. In these cases, article 25 of Law 147, General Law on Non-Profit Legal Entities, establishes that “The assets and shares belonging to the association will have, after liquidation, the destination provided for in the articles of incorporation or in its bylaws.” Only “if nothing has been arranged” about it will they become the property of the State.
In fact, warns the lawyer, article two of decree 8787 of the National Assembly —through which the legal status of 14 associations, including five universities, was canceled—repeats the article 25 of Law 147. However, most of the owners of the canceled associations have chosen to remain silent. In the last week CONFIDENTIAL sent interview requests to 25 of the 39 canceled associations and only three responded to our request.
In the articles of incorporation of the associations “it is customary to say what is going to happen to those assets, but since they are acting not in accordance with the law but rather apart from it, then what has arisen at this time is a confiscation, but it could not give a legal explanation because there is no legal explanation in this case”, emphasizes the lawyer.
In addition, the lawyer values, before canceling the organizations, the National Assembly had to wait “for the corrective process to be exhausted” of the Department of Records and Controls of Associations of the Migob, established in article 22 of Law 147, which consists of fines that They range from 1,000 to 5,000 cordobas or the intervention “for the term strictly necessary to solve the irregularities”.
The corrective sanctions of the regulatory entity “are appealable”, explains the lawyer. That is to say, “they do not acquire sufficient force until any contradiction and allegation by the affected party has been exhausted,” reads article 23 of Law 147.
However, the regime has continued its onslaught against NGOs. The last to be canceled were the Nicaraguan Technological University Association (UTN) and the Santo Tomás de Oriente y Mediodía University Association (Uston-Granada) on February 23. “These two associations have failed to comply with the financial statements according to the fiscal periods, detailed breakdowns, income, expenses, trial balance, details of donations, origin, provenance and final beneficiary; promoting the lack of transparency in the administration of the funds and ignoring the execution of the same”, says the cancellation decree.
Gioconda Belli, International PEN: “Nothing to confiscate”
For Gioconda Belli, president of International PEN Nicaragua, another of the associations canceled by the regime, at the time the cancellation of the NGO was made official, “there was nothing to confiscate” because, in her opinion, the persecution against the organizations began in 2018 and became radicalized with the approval of the Foreign Agents Law, at the end of 2020.
“In May 2018 we requested the certification from the Ministry of the Interior and they did not give it to us, for many months we went to demand that they give it to us and finally the bank closed our account,” Belli said. That’s why “we didn’t have a bank account,” “we didn’t have employees,” and “we were an extremely small organization that ran on volunteers,” she added.
Belli, who is a world-renowned writer, explained that at the beginning of 2021 the organization closed due to the obligation to register as foreign agents, when “we did not receive money from abroad and, on the other hand, we were not going to allow them to restrict us. political freedom to the Nicaraguans who were working in PEN, not allowing us to participate in any political activity. That went against the existence of PEN itself, because PEN is dedicated all over the world to defending the rights of journalists and writers,” she said.
For Belli, although the cancellation of PEN did not imply any type of confiscation, the closure of the organization directly affects society, since “we had been doing cultural work” that “stimulated reading” and, on the other hand, “we had a monitoring of what was happening in relation to public liberties, to freedom of expression and we could tell it to the 130 offices that PEN has around the world”, he lamented.
Another of the personerías recently canceled by the Migob went to the Association of the Central American University of Business Sciences (UCEM); reason why the university that currently operates in Managua clarified to CONFIDENTIAL that the canceled association originates from Costa Rica and it was registered under perpetual number 20, dated August 22, 1996. “This association has been inactive for more than twenty years and does not have any movable or immovable property, therefore, the Ministry of the Interior proceeded to make its closure official,” the university pointed out via email.
On the other hand, the Central American University of Business Sciences (UCEM) is registered under the perpetual number 1146, page 621, of Volume I, book V, of the Department of Registration of Associations of Migob, in accordance with the resolution of September 4, 1998. “UCEM Nicaragua keeps its doors open to continue training quality professionals to promote the development of Nicaragua,” they add.
Illegal confiscation: “A legal involution”
Molina’s lawyer values that the confiscations that have been registered lately in Nicaragua are “something totally serious for the country” and represent “a setback” in legal matters. Situation that will have serious repercussions in the educational system, due to the fact that most of the canceled NGOs were dedicated to the promotion of education and the development of childhood.
For this lawyer, who is member of the Pro Transparency and Anticorruption Observatory, confiscation of assets is like “a legal involution” that he attributes to the “criminal State system that we have” in Nicaragua. “First they started with the independent media, now they are focusing on the issue of education, tomorrow what do I know, maybe I am being a little daring, but it could be private banking and so on,” she says.
Since 2018, after a series of massive protests against the Ortega-Murillo regime, the assets of: CONFIDENTIAL100% Noticias, La Prensa, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), the Center for Information and Health Advisory Services (CISAS), the Institute for Development and Democracy (Ipade), Popol Na, Las Segovias Leadership Institute (ILS), Fundación del Río; Tomza Corporation, a transnational company with Guatemalan capital; 9,800 blocks of land occupied by Sandinista Front militants and even the property of the Taiwan Embassy, after the Nicaraguan regime broke diplomatic relations with the island and recognized the People’s Republic of China, in December 2021.
“What we are doing in Nicaragua with this legal involution is to end all legality,” says Molina. “That is why we are seeing at every moment the different methods of torture that are being used in the different prisons in Nicaragua and it is the product of this degeneration that has occurred in the issue of justice. Justice no longer exists in Nicaragua, there is no judicial system, and what there is is a law of the strongest”, emphasizes the lawyer.
