Bolivian society opposes the decision of the Plurinational Constitutional Court of Bolivia, TCP, to approve the indefinite extension of its own mandate and that of the other judicial courts in the country, which were to operate until December 31. This decision is due to the delay of the judicial elections that were scheduled for this year, but the TCP itself contributed to it, by declaring several laws approved by Parliament to call the elections unconstitutional. Bolivia is the only Latin American country that elects its main judges by popular vote.
“The extension of the mandate of the authorities of the Judicial Branch and the Plurinational Constitutional Court in the current exercise is provided, on an exceptional and temporary basis, until the new authorities are elected and installed,” states TCP ruling 0049/2023. The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, defended the intervention of the Constitutional Court to solve the problem that the country faced due to the lack of judicial elections this year, which was going to leave a vacuum in the Judicial Branch as of January 1, 2024.
For the opposition, however, Lima and the judicial authorities operated in common agreement to prevent the elections, since they were seeking this extension. The Government did so, according to the opposition, because it does not have the necessary majority in Parliament to draw up a list of candidates that maintains its influence over the courts of justice. And the magistrates, to remain in their positions for a period of time whose duration is unpredictable, since the Legislative Assembly seems incapable of calling elections in a unitary manner and lacks the necessary strength to win the power conflict it is waging with the TCP.
The origin of the problem dates back to the division of the hegemonic Movement towards Socialism, MAS, into two factions, and therefore into two parliamentary groups: one that supports President Luis Arce and another that follows the historical leader of the party, Evo Morales. With the fight, it became impossible for the ruling party to achieve the two-thirds of legislative votes it needs to carry out judicial elections tailored to its needs.
Former president and opposition leader Carlos Mesa posted on of this real attack.” Also other opposition groups, including the “evista” wing of the MAS, want Parliament to prosecute the members of the Constitutional Court. A first initiative to do so foundered, according to its promoters, due to the lack of support from Government parliamentarians. “As of January 2, we will have a judicial body and a de facto TCP,” Morales wrote on a social network.
Despite the great political rejection, it is most likely that the TCP sentence will be imposed. According to some jurists, the decisions that the magistrates make after the exhaustion of their constitutional mandate could be considered illegitimate by the litigants, but the possibility of presenting appeals against these authorities will depend on the correlation of political forces, which will only be altered with the presidential elections. 2025. The authorities of the judicial bodies and some bar associations have supported the TCP verdict.
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Bolivia used to organize elections for judicial magistrates every six years. The measure was adopted by the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution approved in 2009, among other reasons, to depoliticize the judicial system. Although the politicians did not make the final decision on the appointment of the magistrates, they did impose their candidates on the list that Parliament must prepare and then submit it to the popular vote. Or at least they could do so when the MAS was united and had what is needed to make this list: two-thirds of the votes in the Legislature. This happened in the two elections that took place in 2011 and 2017.
Currently, the selection of candidates has become unpredictable, since no political organization can gather such a significant majority on its own. An alliance of the different opposition organizations and the “evismo” to gather two-thirds and leave the ruling party out of the Judiciary has become possible in the current scenario. Before it was considered inconceivable due to the ideological differences between these parties. In reality, it has already materialized for the approval in the Senate of the bill to call the elections. In this chamber, where “evism” is stronger than “arcism”, the bill achieved two-thirds of the votes thanks to the common front between the former president's adherents and the “traditional” opposition. But the ruling party, in an implicit alliance with the magistrates, prevented this project from continuing its legislative path with judicial resources and being approved in the Chamber of Deputies, where those from Arce have more strength than the opposition MAS. The project ended up in the hands of the TCP, which declared it unconstitutional in the same ruling in which it extended its mandate and the other judicial mandates.
The president of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, of the “evista” line, recalled that no judicial ruling should benefit the judges who issue it. In this chamber, a “technical commission” was organized to promote a trial against the members of the TCP.
The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Ricardo Torres, defended his colleagues from the wave of criticism. He declared to the press that no other institution, except the TCP, could make the decision that the country needed to guarantee that the judicial system continued to function, since the Legislative Assembly is prohibited from interfering in the affairs of the other powers. On the other hand, as he explained, the TCP does not belong to any power and can therefore “control” the existing ones. This “control” has meant the declaration of unconstitutionality of the Senate bill and two other previous legislative initiatives to make judicial elections viable. “The TCP has undermined the path to the elections,” summarized Senator Rodríguez. Thus, it helped create the conditions for the possibility of the extension of judicial mandates.
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