OPINION: The rotting judicial   branch

The Odebrecht case has been reactivated, at least with regard to an investigation that is incomplete. The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has obtained another six months to investigate what was at the time the design, construction, maintenance and financing of the coastal strip, including the section that was made in the administration of President Martín Torrijos (2004-2009) and the same one that his successor ironically called the “coimera [bribery] tape.” Even when it is good news, pessimism is inevitable, especially after the pathetic events of this week, because if the judges expect to see on video the moment when the bribe was paid or when the defendants put or took the money from the bribe in the bank, it is most likely that from now on the case will be lost, since the Public Ministry will hardly be able to provide those images or audios. However, you have to make the effort, lest it be up to honest judges to do the work that their puppet colleagues cannot do,  find guilty  even those with a confession That of Odebrecht is the most important corruption case in the history of the country, but also never before has the Judicial Branch been so rotten as it is now. – LA PRENSA, Nov. 12.