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Peru The Judiciary
The Supreme Court of Justice was the highest judicial
authority in the nation. The twelve Supreme Court justices
were
nominated by the president and served for life. The
nominations
had to be approved by the Senate. The Supreme Court of
Justice
was also responsible for drawing up the budget for the
judiciary,
which was then submitted to the executive. The budget
could be no
less than 2 percent of the government's expenditures.
Under the
Supreme Court of Justice were the Superior Courts, which
were
seated in the capitals of judicial districts; the Courts
of First
Instance, which sat in provincial capitals and were
divided into
civil, criminal, and special branches; and the justices of
the
peace in all local centers.
Several other judicial functions are worthy of note.
The
public prosecutor's office was appointed by the president
and was
responsible for overseeing the independence of judges and
the
administration of justice, representing the community at
trials,
and defending people before the public administration.
Public
attorneys, who are also appointed by the president, defend
the
interests of the state. The office of the Public Ministry
was
made up of the attorney general and attorneys before the
Supreme
Court of Justice, Superior Courts, and the Courts of First
Instance. Public attorneys defended the rights of citizens
in the
public interest against encroachment by public officials.
The National Elections Board established voting laws,
registered parties and their candidates, and supervised
elections. It also had the power to void elections if the
electoral procedures were invalid. The six-member board
was
composed of one person elected by the Supreme Court of
Justice,
one by the Bar of Lima, one by the law faculty deans of
the
national universities, and three Peru's regional boards.
Although in theory the judicial system was independent
and
guaranteed at least minimal operating financial support,
in
practice this was far from the case. The system had been
hampered
by scarce resources, a tradition of executive
manipulation, and
inadequate protection of officials in the face of threats
from
insurgents and drug traffickers. Even without the
existence of
guerrilla movements, the system was inadequately staffed
to deal
with the number of cases from criminal violations. It was
not
uncommon for detainees to spend several years in prison
awaiting
a hearing. In addition, in the emergency zones, where
guerrillas
were operating, security forces have had virtual carte
blanche in
the areas of interrogation and detention, and suspects
often have
been held incommunicado. Imprisoned suspects awaiting
trial have
subsisted in medieval conditions. In 1990 the Ministry of
Justice
recorded 60 deaths from starvation and a backlog over
several
years of 50,000 unheard cases.
The executive branch traditionally manipulated the
judiciary
for its own purposes, using its ability to appoint and
remove
certain judges for its own political ends. For example,
when a
Superior Court judge ruled that President García's
nationalization of Peru's banks was unconstitutional,
García
merely replaced him with a judge from his party, the
American
Popular Revolutionary Alliance (Alianza Popular
Revolucionaria
Americana--APRA), who then ruled in his favor.
It also was common for known terrorists or drug
traffickers
to be released for "insufficient evidence" by judges with
no
protection whatsoever but with responsibility for trying
those
suspected of terrorism. Largely because of corruption or
inefficiency in the system, only 5 percent of those
detained for
terrorism had been sentenced by 1991. Those responsible
for
administering justice were under threat from all sides of
the
political spectrum: guerrilla movements, drug traffickers,
and
military-linked paramilitary squads. Notable cases
included the
murder of the defense attorney for the SL's number two
man, Osmán
Morote Barrionuevo, by an APRA-linked death squad, the
Rodrigo
Franco Command; the self-exile of a public attorney after
repeated death threats during his investigation of the
military's
role in the massacre of at least twenty-nine peasants in
Cayara,
Ayacucho Department, on May 14, 1988; a bloody letter-bomb
explosion at the headquarters of the Lima-based Pro-Human
Rights
Association (Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos--Aprodeh);
and the
March 1991 resignation of an attorney general of the
military
court martial, after he received death threats for
denouncing
police aid and abetment of the rescue by the Túpac Amaru
Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac
Amaru--
MRTA) of one of its leaders, María Lucero Cumpa Miranda.
The
judicial terrorism was hardly surprising, given the lack
of
protection for judges dealing with terrorism cases; many
of them
normally rode the bus daily to work, totally unprotected.
Finally, owing to neglect of the judicial system by
successive
governments, the Supreme Court of Justice lacked a
significant
presence at the national level.
In the context of widespread terrorism, what was legal
in
theory and what happened in practice had little to do with
each
other. As the situation increasingly became one of
unrestrained
violence, the capability of the judicial system to monitor
the
course of events was reduced markedly. In addition, the
judicial
system was unable to escape the loss of confidence in
state
institutions in general that had occurred among the
Peruvian
public. The discrediting of the judicial system was a
significant
step toward the total erosion of constitutional order.
Data as of September 1992
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