Bolivia’s main opposition party proposes agreement to reform country’s judicial system

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The main opposition party in the Bolivian Parliament, Comunidad Ciudadana (CC), of former president Carlos Mesa, proposed this Monday (23) to the government of president Luis Arce a political “agreement” to reform the country’s courts and achieve “reconciliation” among Bolivians.

Mesa sent a letter to President Arce to propose signing an agreement between the opposition forces represented in the Legislative Assembly and the governmental Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party to reform the judiciary in the short term and thus “guarantee” an independent judicial body.

This reform is proposed with a view to “making trials of responsibilities viable” within the framework of the conclusions of the report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) sent by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to verify the events of 2019 in Bolivia.

Mesa’s proposal includes changing the attorney general and modifying a norm so that the appointment of the new official would be by a two-thirds vote of the Legislative Assembly, “after a merit-based competition” and an evaluation by a citizens’ committee. The term to make this change would be 90 days from the moment of the signing of the agreement.

It also proposes to modify the system of election of the magistrates of the judicial body that can be implemented in the election of 2023.

“The judicial system has lost legitimacy, and it is not possible to get out of the political and social crisis with a collapsed justice system, without credibility and susceptible to be managed by the political power,” states a CC press release.

The GIEI report detected serious human rights violations during the political and social crisis of 2019 in the country after the failed elections. Also, it warned about “serious deficiencies” of the Bolivian state to guarantee the independence of the Judiciary and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

For his part, Arce indicated in a speech that “the correct way to pacify” the country is with “the application of justice as soon as possible”.

“The Bolivian people are no longer willing to put up with impunity or pacts of silence. Bolivia needs to move forward,” Arce said.

Bolivia remains embroiled in a controversy between the ruling party, which claims that Evo Morales was overthrown by a coup d’état, and his detractors, who argue that the crisis was the result of fraud in favor of the former president in the failed general elections of 2019, which were later annulled.