Judge Ileana Pérez, president of the Sivil and Family Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), was demoted in the Judiciary by “superior orders” from the FSLN Secretariat that maintains control of this institution, trusted sources this institution.
Pérez ceased to be in charge of the southern constituency, which includes the departments of Rivas and Granada, where the justice system administers disputes of valuable coastal properties and cases linked to drug trafficking.
“Right now I’m busy, sir, I’m in the gym, I can’t help you,” Pérez said by phone at the end of the edition.
Exit of Ileana Pérez, fourth blow in the CSJ
The magistrate becomes the first-level official of the highest court of justice to be removed from part of her duties due to the intervention of the FSLN Secretariat, which in recent days ordered the dismissal of the Director of Protocol, the Director of International Relations. , and the surprise arrest of the judicial spokesman, Roberto Larios Meléndez.
These decisions were handled with secrecy, after they were taken by superior guidance, channeled through the FSLN chain of command in the CSJ, headed by the presidential adviser Nestor Moncada Lau and the magistrate Marvin Aguilar Garciapolitical secretary and vice president of the institution.
The sources explained that these measures taken with these officials are due to two fundamental reasons: internal struggles within the FSLN or that the ousted officials are involved in acts of corruption, which they consider the least likely hypothesis, given the level of dishonesty prevailing in the courts of Justice.
On February 4, Pérez herself was questioned at the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) of Managua, the police investigation office. She was then questioned about the property of a drug trafficker, which she was seized and later assigned to Emilio Chan Lopeza brother of the senior judicial official, who held the position of civil judge in Rivas.
During the search of that real estate, the Police seized more than 200,000 dollars in cash. However, despite the scandal, Judge Chan López was transferred to the north of Nicaragua and remains in a position without any prominence. Neither he nor Judge Pérez ruled on these findings and continued with their judicial tasks.
According to the institution’s sources, the removal of the magistrate is a “tail blow” of the old corruption cases in which she was supposedly involved, which have been handled with reserve by the FSLN and the judicial authorities.
The demotion of the magistrate goes against the vote of his colleagues in the Full Court that last June they decided the re-election of Alba Luz Ramos and Aguilar, as president and vice president of the CSJ respectively, in addition to ratifying the other magistrates, including Pérez, in their positions.
They investigate their close circle
Yader Morazán, a former Nicaraguan judicial official, said that Pérez’s close circle was taken to Chipote—as the DAJ prisons are known—to be interrogated, while the magistrate was removed from her duties in the southern district, a an administrative role that also has a political scope in the current structure of the CSJ, made up of 11 magistrates, the majority from the government party.
“In everything that has to do with that administrative assignment (that of the southern constituency) there was a political role: giving reports, activities and political decisions. And now that nature has changed, agree with the political secretaries of that constituency to do the job,” Morazán explained.
The last public activities, reported precisely by the CSJ in which Pérez participated, were work tours in Granada and Rivas last month, in which he met with different members of the Judiciary such as judges, coroners and public defenders.
Pérez was elected as a magistrate with a majority vote of the FSLN in the National Assembly on November 25, 2014, to fill the position that became vacant after the death of Sandinista magistrate Ligia Molina.
Pérez is a native of Santo Domingo, Chontales, a neighboring town of La Libertad, where Ortega was born. She began her career as the sole local judge of the municipality of Camoapa, in Boaco, in 1993. She is remembered in any case for subordinating her judicial decisions to the FSLN.
The hunt in the CSJ
At the beginning of October, in an atmosphere of growing pressure against the workers of the Judiciary, the SCJ authorities communicated the decision to dismiss the daughter of former Vice Chancellor Valdrack Jaenstchke, Katya, who served as director of international relations since September 2019.
The dismissal caused surprise among the officials of the institution, because the order was issued from El Carmen and was carried out without hesitation, despite the fact that Jaenstchke was fulfilling the functions of his position and was also serving as an FSLN militant. She was not even allowed to collect her personal belongings, according to the sources consulted.
Ruth Tapia Roa was also dismissed as director of protocol for the CSJ. The official was a former Secretary of Defense, representative of Nicaragua before France, before the Organization of American States (OAS) and a defender of the regime against the questions made in the international community for the serious human rights abuses committed by the State.
The spokesman for the CSJ, Roberto Larios, considered a lawyer loyal to the government party, was arrested on Saturday, October 16, at his residence in El Viejo, Chinandega, in the west of the country. His offices in Managua were also raided, without further details being known until now.
The newspaper La Prensa and 100% Noticias reported that Larios was taken away last Tuesday, October 18, with handcuffs and dressed in blue, as the dictatorship mocks political prisoners. The hearing was held in the Managua courts and he was accused on alleged charges of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity.” However, no information has been published in the judicial electronic system so far.
“There are a lot of cases, beyond those that are known. People of lesser rank, of greater (…) These are the fruits of a culture that they have sown, which is a culture of cannibalism, where they hold on to their position through servility. They all obey the criminal interests of the Ortega Murillo family,” added Morazán.
The television program This Week and CONFIDENTIAL published on October 9 and 11 an interview with “Sergio”, a worker from the Judiciary, who confirmed the abuses committed by the Dictatorship against state employees. One of the most notable is the political vigilance exercised by the FSLN and the pressure exerted against those who think differently.
