QCOSTARICA – Once again, Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves is being asked to clear up his off-the-hip comments. This time from the Judges of the Judiciary who have asked the president present evidence on the alleged sentences to which he referred to on Friday, March 31, or that he retract his insinuations.

Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves. Photo: Casa Presidencial

Chaves, commenting on the prison sentence handed down to former PLN legislator Víctor Hugo Víquez, to two years and eight months for alleged influence peddling, assured that judicial judges can issue different sentences for the same crime, which allows, when the sentence is less than three years, serving in prison and to avail of the conditional execution of the sentence.

“You have just seen a legislator who by coincidence was given a 2.8-year prison sentence, how strange because less than three years is not served in prison. I am not saying anything, but I wonder,” Chaves said.

Likewise, the Sindicato de la Judicatura (Sindijud) – union of judges – indicated that if the president suspected the commission of the crime of malfeasance, in his capacity as a public official, he had the duty to denounce and provide the evidence that supports his affirmation.

The union also urged Chaves, given the insecurity in which the country finds itself, to deal efficiently with government affairs and avoid committing crimes as befits the Executive Branch, not the Judicial branch.

“We request the Supreme Court of Justice to expressly rule on the repeated and disrespectful interference by the President of the Republic in specific matters within the jurisdiction of the Judiciary,” added the Sindijud.

On the other hand, the judges criticized the president’s constant attacks “using the tacky language that characterizes him, inappropriate for a statesman,” since he began his administration, on May 8, 2022.

“From the moment he took office as President, Rodrigo Chaves has not stopped attacking the Judiciary, with the clear intention of weakening the republican institutional framework that he swore to defend,.

“To summon the President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves, so that he directly and concretely provide the evidence that allows him to affirm that in the case he alluded to on Friday, March 31, 2023, the judges “negotiated” with the defendant the sentence imposed ”, Union of the Judiciary,” reads the letter sent by the Judiciary Union this Sunday.