Total impunity looms in high-profile cases

The annulment of the preliminary hearing in the New Business case, which was held by the Third Criminal Court on January 27, 2022, reveals the great imperfections of the Panamanian judicial system, in which formalities in trivial matters can dessert– injustices and impunity. What was ordered by the First Superior Court of Justice implies a setback in the process, because now we have to start over, since a decision by the judge in charge of the case has been annulled.

The inflexible rigidity of our justice system and its exaggerated formality have become traps whose effect is that of a minefield for judges and prosecutors, before the indifferent gaze of the highest authorities of the Judicial Branch who, having legislative initiative, do little or nothing to solve the impassable procedural labyrinth that ends in absurd rulings, devoid of all justice, but full of formal and legal excuses because the files end up exploding in the mines of “due process.” Is this the scenario of New Business, Odebrecht, FCC, Blue Apple and the others? With what is happening in the high-profile cases in Panama, this will surely be the scenario: total impunity. – LA PRENSA, Jun. 20.