Panama was betting Odebrecht hearing would never happen

Panama was not prepared for such a high-profile hearing and citizens were betting that it would not take place, and it is being carried out said the presiding magistrate of the Supreme Court María Eugenia López, referring to the preliminary hearing for the Odebrecht case, cataloged as the most emblematic corruption process of recent times.

“They are complex cases, very voluminous, we did not have the structures” to carry them out, said López, in an interview on TVN Channel 2. “Panama was not prepared to deal with such high-profile cases,” she acknowledged.

The magistrate pointed out that the institution has made efforts to support the judges, by providing them with the personnel they required. “Files of a million pages. How humanely does a judge review a file of that volume? ”, She commented. “High-profile cases are very complex cases,” she remarked.

She referred to the poor perception of citizens about the justice administration system in the country.

Cleaning up 
“Certainly the public perception that there are cases of corruption, we cannot deny that,” she said. However, she affirmed that the institution has been cleaning up when these misconducts have been detected. “The plenary session of the Court is committed to improving this public service,” she assured.

On other issues, López announced that the first steps have already been taken to specify what will be the Judicial City, which will be located on donated land behind the Technological University of Panama.

She said that the Inter-American Development Bank will support with a loan –whose amount she did not specify– and that the project will be developed through the Public-Private Partnership system. She also referred to the accusatory penal system, which she said does work, but “requires procedural changes.”

María Eugenia López Arias was appointed as a magistrate of the Supreme Court by President Cortizo; She was ratified by the National Assembly on December 4, 2019. She replaced Judge Jerónimo Mejía in the Second Criminal Chamber, whose period expired on December 31, 2017.