The legal director for Latin America of the Christian Lawyers Association, Carlos Ramirezannounced that he will raise the case of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez before international courts, because the judicial process that the Catholic hierarch faced is full of irregularities.
“There are a series of irregularities in the internal process (against the bishop of Matagalpa), a clear flagrant violation of his constitutional guarantees and human rights,” the lawyer explained to the newspaper. The Press.
For this reason, the Christian Lawyers Association decided to “take up the matter and take it to the relevant international bodies. Not just for the flagrant violation of constitutional rights and guarantees, but to safeguard the integrity and life of Monsignor Álvarez.
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Carlos Ramírez also indicated that the judicial process against the Catholic hierarch is irregular, because the Ortega justice sentenced him based on a law that was not yet in force and did not apply to him, “so under the strict legal framework they should eliminate the sanction that at the time it was imposed, to release him, because there is no verifiable crime to prosecute, in a reliable way the witnesses who presented at the time are not even in person, they are witnesses by ear and all that could be challenged in an ordinary way in a court that was objective, but in this case we know that they are not, they have a biased view of reality and that has led to this irregular process.”
Likewise, the lawyer assured that, through the association, they will exhaust all avenues and go before the Organization of American States (OAS) and before the Inter-American Court of Justice, in order to file a complaint.
“There are four instances that we are going to exhaust. The first are independent, the last two need to exhaust the national instances that are still in force in Nicaragua. We are going to request the intervention of the Organization of American States, we are going to request the intervention of the UN, this through the precautionary measures that can be requested at the time to safeguard the human rights of the politically persecuted or the inmates who have been violated in their rights and constitutional guarantees, and we will also assert this before the Inter-American court once all local instances in judicial matters are exhausted,” he said.
They will demand information about the bishop from the regime
Carlos Ramírez also explained to La Prensa that through diplomatic channels they will request the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to “publicly expose the information about the bishop, that this is also a situation that must be brought to public view. Data, for example, about him in which prison he is, what is his condition, what is his state of health, what conditions of coexistence he is having ».
In addition, he stressed that the process before the Inter-American Court depends on the resolution made by the local courts, “which, as far as we understand, are arbitrarily delaying the resolution of the challenge to the sentence that was made at the time, after the challenge comes the appeal of cassation, which must also be resolved by the local courts and once this is done we could request the intervention of the Inter-American Court”.
“We would be talking in an ordinary process of weeks, but perhaps due to the controversy of the matter, they will delay it for months. We are aware of the process in Nicaragua through the monitoring of the independent media, but we do not have a direct inference (in the case)”, he added.
On the other hand, the jurist stressed that the goal of the Christian Lawyers Association is for “the rule of law to prevail and to free Monsignor Álvarez.”
Carlos Ramírez assured that they view with concern “the flagrant violation of human rights, we see a total elimination of the right to religious freedom, an implantation of a dictatorship that little by little is limiting more freedoms of Nicaraguan citizens and it is a danger, not nothing. more for the democratic stability of a nation but for all the citizens who live in that country”.
He affirmed that the break between the Ortega regime and the Vatican could worsen the situation of the bishop of Matagalpa, since “Daniel Ortega literally reacted violently to the statements made by Pope Francis and the diplomatic rupture between the Vatican and Nicaragua does not indicate nothing more than that there is a closure to the series of international arguments that have been exposed in the implementation of a dictatorship that is a fait accompli in Nicaragua and it can aggravate the judicial situation of the bishop and it is worrying, because he suffers from diabetes he should have a special attention to receive adequate food, medicines”.
“The diplomatic pressure is strong and the legal pressure is going to increase, because, just as we are exercising actions, there will be other international organizations that will do so, because, I repeat, there is an evident violation of the freedoms and constitutional guarantees of the people of Nicaragua” he added.
