Development: On 13 July Peru’s justice minister, Salvador Heresi, tendered his resignation at the behest of President Martín Vizcarra over a corruption scandal embroiling senior magistrates in the national justice system.
Significance: Heresi’s position became untenable after the local news programme Panorama broadcast an audio recording of a conversation he had held with a supreme court judge, César Hinostroza, one of the principal figures implicated in the corruption scandal. While the audio does not reveal any wrongdoing, President Vizcarra clearly calculated that it would have made it difficult for Heresi to push through congress a sweeping judicial reform. Vizcarra promised such a reform when the scandal first broke a week ago.
- On the latest audio recording Heresi asks Hinostroza, president of the second transitory criminal chamber of the supreme court, to come to his office to discuss a legal initiative with him. In the first batch of recordings released days earlier, Hinostroza is heard to offer an intermediary of a defendant accused of raping an 11-year old girl a reduced, or even a not guilty, sentence.
- Walter Ríos, president of the senior appeals court in Callao region, resigned on the same day as Heresi after appearing in several compromising recordings. Two days later, on 15 July, the national police (PNP) arrested Ríos after a supreme court magistrate accepted a request to apprehend him by the acting prosecutor of internal affairs, Jaime Velarde.
- Velarde assumed control of the investigations after the prosecutor of internal affairs, Víctor Raúl Rodríguez, was recused on 13 July. Rodríguez was implicated in the scandal after an audio recording emerged in which he can be heard talking to Mario Mendoza, a businessman suspected of being central to the judicial influence trafficking and corruption network. On the recording, Rodríguez asks Mendoza to drop by his office to discuss a matter of importance.
Looking Ahead: Vizcarra appointed a six-strong commission of legal experts on 13 July, giving them 12 days to draw up a report with proposals for a reform of the justice system. Vizcarra will present these proposals in his state-of-the-nation address to congress on 28 July.