The Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations of Congress today approved, by majority, 10 votes in favor, the final report that establishes the constitutional violation of the former president Pedro Castillothe former premier Betssy Chavez and the former head of the Interior Willy Huerta for the coup d’état of December 7, 2022. In this sense, it was also agreed to recommend, in all three cases, disqualification from holding public office for a period of 10 years.
It should be noted that 3 legislators voted against, there were no abstentions.
What is necessary now, according to the Internal Regulations of the Congress of the Republic, is for the report to be sent to the Permanent Commission.
If approved in said instance, an accusatory subcommittee will be appointed that will have to support it before the Plenary Session where the favorable vote of two-thirds of the number of members of Parliament will be required, without participation of the members of the Permanent Commission, to approve the disqualification.
The report was supported by Congresswoman Ana Zegarra and also proposed shelving the constitutional complaint against Congressman Roberto Sánchez upon determining that there is a judicial resolution that establishes that he did not participate in the coup carried out by Castillo, currently imprisoned in the Barbadillo prison.
Congressman Pasión Dávila attributed the request for disqualification to political “revenge,” and maintained that the former president is detained “arbitrarily.” “I see no reason to constitutionally accuse Pedro Castillo, but we are in a majority situation and they have the votes. (…) The Prosecutor’s Office has not found a crime. How can we classify it as a coup d’état if nothing has been proven? All administrative action in Congress has been irregular,” he alleged.
Lady Camones, president of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations, replied that the events covered by the report “were provenly an attempt to rupture the democratic and constitutional order.”
“This is not a political persecution. This Congress, for the most part, rose to the occasion, applying the Constitution and ensuring constitutional succession and proceeding to lift the political pretrial of all those involved so that the Judiciary can process them accordingly. Three years have passed and the Judiciary is already in the final stage before requesting a ruling from the first instance. It is up to us to apply the Constitution and establish constitutional responsibilities of those who violated the constitutional framework,” he stressed.
The legislator, along those lines, stated that “the conclusions of the report on the responsibilities of Pedro Castillo, Betssy Chávez and Willy Huerta and the imposition of disqualification from holding public office for 10 years are welcome.”
On the other hand, he addressed “those political sectors that point out that this parliamentary procedure would be part of political persecution.” “It is not a political persecution, it only seeks to demand that they assume the consequences of their actions and protect the same constitutional framework that guarantees their participation, their voice and their vote in this debate and other debates of public interest,” he pointed out.
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