September 20, 2022, 19:45 PM
September 20, 2022, 19:45 PM
President Luis Arce denied the existence of partisan political interference in justice and said that the reports of international organizations on this subject were prepared with insufficient information. Likewise, referred to a possible legalization of marijuana and recalled that this issue was discussed with his recently appointed counterpart, Gustavo Petro.
“There are many international organizations that make statements that are not sufficiently informed, in Bolivia there is no type of subordination of justice, what we do have is a debt pending resolution, which is the delay in the resolution of cases and other types of aspects that the Bolivian Government is going to address through the Ministry of Justice ”, said Arce at the press conference offered to journalists from the northern country, after his speech at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.
international reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR); the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI); o The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) detected open political-partisan interference in justicenot only from the current government, but from long before.
“The Ministry of Justice is working to make a clear proposal that is not only a reform, we call a ‘reconstruction of justice’. A subjugation does not exist in our country, what does exist is a justice that is not working to resolve the demands of the population”, he referred in the second part of his response.
The GIEI report found that most of the cases for which political opponents are persecuted are linked to the crimes of sedition and terrorism. The report even recommended the elimination of these two crimes from the Bolivian penal system. and in March of this year the Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) annulled the crime of sedition.
Until now, all the trials that were opened against the leaders and militants of the MAS were closed, archived or dismissed; On the contrary, the cases in which political opponents are involved have become more acute and the courts are accelerating the deadlines and steps.
Likewise, the head of state was approached to issue an opinion regarding the possibility of legalizing marijuana. Arce said that the proposal was launched by Colombian President Gustavo Petro and that he requested more elements that could justify a decision of this nature.
“On the occasion of his assumption as president (Gustavo Petro) he has made us aware of an idea that raised about legalisation, we have said that we want to hear a very specific approachbecause we are interested in hearing that approach, to analyze it, to evaluate it,” Arce told reporters.
He related that the fight against drug trafficking is something they have in common with Peru and Colombia, although with very different realities, but that it can be tackled jointly by the three countries because would be an opportunity to harmonize the criteria fight against this scourge.
