Security & Strategic Review - July 2014 (ISSN 1741-4202)

BOLIVIA | Upheaval in the judiciary. On 28 July Bolivia’s 130-member lower chamber voted to suspend two magistrates from the seven-member plurinational constitutional court (TC), Ligia Velásquez and Zoraida Chanez, so they could face trial for negligence of duties and prevarication. These are the first sitting justices elected to their post in the unprecedented October 2011 national elections to select 56 new judges to be suspended. Their suspension illustrates the continued crisis in Bolivia’s judiciary, a weak point which could well emerge as a campaign issue ahead of 12 October general elections, reigniting long-standing complaints about the politicisation of justice under the Morales government, which first took office in 2006. Chanez claims that the move is part of an attempt by the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) to control the TC and pave the way for Evo Morales’s indefinite re-election, which the 2009 constitution currently prohibits.

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