OPINION: Battling to avoid monumental escape

The investigations into the Odebrecht case culminate this week, after months of investigations that probably end up incomplete, given its complexity. Prosecutors have done their work in a hostile environment, with frontal media attacks, both from those involved and from politicians who intend to bury the case under a pile of formalities that seek not to get to the bottom, that the denunciations are discarded, as well as the bank pieces of evidence. But, beyond all this, it has become clear that our criminal legislation is undermined, made so that the slightest error on the part of the parties serves to annul complete investigations, when what is possible are less severe solutions, such as corrections. Both the Public Ministry and the Judicial Branch have legislative initiative that could pave the way to make judicial processes less formal and provide greater procedural guarantees to do true justice. The Public Ministry will now have to prepare a tax hearing in this case. He wants dozens of defendants to be prosecuted in an emblematic and very high-profile case. If there is merit to call a trial, the fate of the process will be in the hands of the Judicial Branch, which will have one of its hardest tests.- LA PRENSA. Oct. 13