Bolivian society rejects the decision of the Plurinational Constitutional Court of Bolivia (TCP) to authorize the indefinite extension of its own mandate and the mandate of the country's other courts, which should operate until December 31. This decision is due to the delay in judicial elections scheduled for this year, but the TCP itself contributed to this by declaring several laws passed by Parliament declaring the elections unconstitutional. Bolivia is the only Latin American country that elects its chief judges by popular vote.
“The extension of the mandate of the authorities of the judiciary and the Plurinational Constitutional Court in the current proceedings is provided for exceptionally and temporarily, until the new authorities are elected and installed,” says TCP decision 0049/2023. Justice Minister 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 would leave a vacuum in the judiciary from January 1, 2024.
However, for the opposition, Lima and the judicial authorities agreed to prevent the elections as they sought this extension. The opposition said the government did this because it did not have the necessary majority in parliament to draw up a list of candidates that would maintain its influence over the courts. And the judges will have to remain in office for a period whose duration is unpredictable, since the Legislative Assembly appears unable to hold elections in a unified manner and lacks the necessary strength to deal with the conflict of power that it is facing with the TCP leads to winning.
The origin of the problem goes back to the split of the hegemonic Movement towards Socialism (MAS) into two factions and therefore two factions in Parliament: one supporting President Luis Arce and another supporting the party's historic leader, Evo Morales. follows. The struggle made it impossible for the ruling party to secure the two-thirds of parliamentary votes it needed to hold judicial elections tailored to its needs.
Former president and opposition leader Carlos Mesa posted a report about this real attack.” Other opposition groups, including the “evista” wing of the MAS, also want parliament to prosecute the members of the Constitutional Court. According to its initiators, a first initiative in this regard failed due to a lack of support from government parliamentarians. “From January 2nd we will have a judicial authority and a de facto TCP,” Morales wrote on a social network.
Despite the strong political opposition, the imposition of the TCP penalty is highly likely. According to some jurists, the decisions that the judges make after exhausting their constitutional mandate could be considered illegitimate by the litigants, but the possibility of appealing against these authorities depends on the balance of political forces, which is only changed with the Presidential elections. 2025. Judicial authorities and some bar associations have supported the TCP ruling.
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Bolivia used to hold elections for judges every six years. The measure was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the Constitution adopted in 2009, with the aim, among other things, of depoliticizing the justice system. Although politicians did not make the final decision on the appointment of judges, they did place their candidates on the list drawn up by Parliament and then put them to the referendum. At least they could do this if the MAS was united and had what it took to draw up this list: two-thirds of the votes in the legislature. This happened in both elections in 2011 and 2017.
Currently, the selection of candidates has become unpredictable as no political organization alone can achieve such a large majority. In the current scenario, an alliance between the various opposition organizations and “Evismo” is possible to collect two thirds and exclude the ruling party from the judiciary. Previously, this was considered unthinkable due to the ideological differences between these parties. In reality, the Senate has already approved the draft law calling for new elections. In this chamber, where “evism” is stronger than “arcism,” the bill received two-thirds of the vote thanks to the common front between the former president's supporters and the “traditional” opposition. But the ruling party, in a tacit alliance with the judges, prevented this project from continuing its legislative path through judicial means and being approved in the Chamber of Deputies, where Arce's representatives are stronger 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 formed to pursue a trial against the members of the TCP.
Supreme Court President Ricardo Torres defended his colleagues from the wave of criticism. He told the press that no other institution except the TCP could make the decision the country needed to ensure the functioning of the justice system, as the Legislative Assembly was 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” led to 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,” concluded Senator Rodríguez. This created the conditions for the possibility of expanding judicial mandates.
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