Criticism. The magistrate Gustavo Gutiérrez Ticse, member of the Constitutional Court (TC), who reviewed the habeas corpus requested by Pedro Castillo’s lawyerEduardo Pachas, regarding the case of treason against the president, questioned the arguments of the attorney Yuri Iván García Cano, representative of Congress, when asking him if “opinion is a crime”.
Magistrate: As a lawyer, you should know that criminal offenses are governed by the principle of taxation. The specific question is What is the typical act in which the president has incurred to impute an alleged crime of treason against the homeland? The article says that in practice it is an act submitted to direct or submit to the Republic. What is the act aimed at subjecting the Republic to foreign domination or being independent of the part thereof?
Congressional Attorney: According to the typical description that is part of the fact. He asks me for my opinion, but to whom it corresponds is the congressmen of the Republic.
Magistrate: Lawyer you are the attorney. You come representing the congressmen and you have to give the arguments of the Congress.
Congressional Attorney: What this report considers is the apparent intentions that Mr. Castillo had before becoming president and his pronouncement given nationally and internationally, already being president. This interview is in some way an affectation to the national territory by giving way to a foreign country through our territory. If we look at the final report, we see an unconsummated crime as shown in the report of the Subcommittee, so it shows an act of attempt.
Magistrate: Is the opinion a crime in the degree of attempt? Mr. Lawyer, that position worries me a lot.. First, because we are talking about a sister country like Bolivia. Second, because you are knocking down a decade of Latin American integration policies. He is leading the pendulum of condemning Haya de la Torre with his proposal for Latin American integration, Antenor Orrego, José Carlos Mariátegui, Jorge Basadre, and Víctor Andrés Belaúnde. I ask you again. Do you believe that opinion is a crime?or as the criminal type speaks requires a level of enforceability, of action, a supreme decree, an emergency decree, an agreement of the council of ministers, a subscription to a unilateral agreement? Do you pretend that the figure of treason based on the interpretation that is being made is going to condemn the opinion itself? Or did the president take further action after giving his opinion in the media?
Congressional Attorney: Materially, we have not put it in the report. As you said, there is no material act of the Council of Ministers.
