What happened in the Odebrech case, in which two defendants were released for lack of evidence for bribery, is further proof that a constitutional reform is needed to establish that an attorney general of the Republic does not depend on a political party, said this morning the Civic Movement Citizen Participation (PC).
The national coordinator of the PC, Erick Hernández Machado Santana, said that a constitutional amendment is required to provide the Attorney General’s Office with the independence, irremovability and responsibility to present a complete, coherent, logical and sustainable accusation in the criminal process.
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“The apolitical nature of the candidate proposed in the PGR reform project creates the conditions for better accusations and to remove politics from them,” he said.
He added that “what happened in the Odrebrech criminal process confirms society’s concerns regarding the functions of the former Attorney General’s Office and the need for the current constitutional amendment to provide the PGR with the independence, irremovability and responsibility to present a complete, coherent, logical and sustainable accusation in the criminal process.”
The civic leader stressed that, as the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) has declared, the accusation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office lacks the elements of the infraction of bribery, since it has not been possible to prove that the sums received by one of the accused were intended to be delivered to a public official qualified for a specific matter, resulting in the accusation being deficient and therefore all the accused being exonerated from the process.
The decision
Last Friday, the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice acquitted the former Minister of Public Works, Víctor Díaz Rúa, and Ángel Rondón, accused of receiving bribes in the Odebrech corruption scandal.
