Caribbean & Central America - September 2026

Costa Rica’s President Laura Fernández has accused top judges of an attempted coup d’état amid a deepening conflict between the executive and judicial branches, which has carried over from her predecessor (2022-2026) and political mentor Rodrigo Chaves’ time in office. 

This latest clash was sparked by a 30 July ruling from the supreme court (CSJ)’s constitutional chamber (Sala IV), which extended the terms of Sala IV alternate magistrates which had expired in December 2025. The CSJ comprises 22 magistrates of which seven sit on the Sala IV, which has a further 12 alternates. Sala IV requires 12 alternates to function normally but only three have been appointed, with the 57-member unicameral legislature failing to select the necessary replacements despite various rounds of voting. Fernández’s Partido Pueblo Soberano (PPSO) then moved to archive the process rather than keep trying to name replacement magistrates, meaning a backlog of 123 case files had built up as of 14 July due to the lack of quorum: a 10 August statement of concern by the New York City Bar Association regarding the operational crisis in Costa Rica’s judiciary points out that by law, “sitting justices must recuse themselves from certain cases due to disqualification, incapacity, or conflicts of interest, and without available alternates to replace them, the panel required to decide those cases cannot be constituted”.  

On 31 July, Fernández denounced what she called a “coup d’état” by the judicial branch, calling the ruling, which also ordered the legislature to vote on an existing list of candidates proposed by the CSJ, “illegal and unconstitutional” and claiming that the four magistrates that voted in favour of it were “coup plotters.” Then on 3 August, the PPSO upped the stakes by filing a criminal complaint against the four judges. Despite street protests in favour of the judges on 6 August, the following day Fernández doubled down on her position, telling a local journalist that her government was the victim of an “institutional coup d’état”. In addition to budget cuts for the judiciary, this sequence of events marks a new low for relations between the two branches of power.

• Budget cuts

In late June the local media circulated excerpts of a statement by the Costa Rican association of judges (Acojud) which expressed concerns about an announced cut of approximately ₡27bn (US$59.4m) to the judiciary’s budget this year. This also drew alarm from figures such as United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, who, in a 23 July social media post, warned that it could “compromise the functioning of justice administration, affecting investigations, trials, and other essential services”.

Fernández and Chaves, now serving as her finance minister as well as the minister of the presidency, maintain that the judiciary has hindered the government in its efforts to combat organised crime in the face of Costa Rica’s worsening security situation, with apparently lenient sentences and pre-trial detention measures a constant source of tension. In a press conference on 15 July, Fernández used a 2017 homicide case, in which the alleged killer was allowed to remain on the streets and went on to reportedly kill two more people in 2025, as an example of the failings of the justice system. She has also used the case of former CSJ justice Celso Gamboa (2016-2018), also a former security minister (2014-2015), who was extradited to the US this year over drug related charges [SSR-26-05], to claim the judiciary was infiltrated by organised crime.

The judicial investigation agency (OIJ) and attorney general’s office (MP) did however score a notable success with the 24 July capture of the country’s most-wanted fugitive, alleged drug trafficker Alejandro ‘Diablo’ Arias Monge who had been on the run for a decade. The timing of his capture was awkward for the government, as were local media reports that the MP had filed accusations against five police officers, who serve the public security ministry and are therefore part of the executive branch, for allegedly working with Arias Monge’s organisation. This suggests that police corruption, rather than a lack of technical capacity at the OIJ, may have played a role in Arias Monge’s ability to evade capture for so long.

While Fernández did initially congratulate the OIJ on the successful operation, she soon returned to the more critical discourse around inefficiencies in the judicial branch. A few days later, on 6 August the local media reported that the MP had opened a criminal investigation into Fernández and Chaves over the 22 June appointment of Katherine Tenorio Ruiz as director of the fiscal control police (PCF) which is attached to the finance ministry. The investigation concerns changes to rules relating to the appointment process which took place days before Tenorio’s appointment was made public. This means the institutional crisis has now taken on a personal element for both Fernández and Chaves, who has been implicated in a corruption case linked to alleged illegal financing for his 2022 election campaign.

As regards the impasse in Sala IV, local media outlets such as Costa Rican broadcaster Teletica have suggested that Chaves, who during his mandate survived two attempts to strip him of his immunity from prosecution in relation to other cases [SSR-25-08], has an interest in making sure new judges cannot be appointed: one of the matters blocked by the lack of quorum is reportedly a request to lift Chaves’ immunity from prosecution over the alleged illegal financing case.

However, the 30 July Sala IV ruling has drawn a mixed response from legal experts. Some have said that it was attempting to reimpose the rules set out by the constitution, including Costa Rican lawyer Gabriela de San Román Aguilar, who wrote an op-ed in local media outlet La Nación arguing that the ruling did not constitute a power grab. Others said that the court ruling itself may have been unconstitutional, with former judge Fabián Volio telling local media outlet El Mundo that the legal argument rests on the idea that you can’t extend something that has expired, and therefore the court was attempting to “usurp” responsibilities that belong to congress.

In any case, the escalating conflict between executive and judiciary is cause for growing international concern. As well as the 10 August statement by the New York City Bar Association, which also signalled concerns about the cuts to the judiciary’s budget, on 7 August Centro por la Justicia y el Derecho Internacional (Cejil), a regional human rights organisation, published an open letter signed by dozens of international organisations, expressing their “deep concern for the deterioration of democratic institutions and judicial independence in Costa Rica.”

These concerns about the wider effects of the conflict were echoed by an op-ed in local financial media outlet El Financiero published 10 August, which argues that the president’s rhetoric could have a negative effect on investor confidence. So far, it appears Costa Rica’s famed institutions are holding the line, despite similar attacks during Chaves’ time in office, as the country’s rule of law score remained unchanged year-on-year in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2025, ranking 28^th out of 143 countries. But looking ahead, this may change as Fernández seems intent on deepening the conflict as she looks to consolidate her and Chaves’ political project.

Iapa concern

On 11 August the US-based press freedom lobby Inter-American Press Association (Iapa) issued a statement questioning the 10 August decree which classifies a range of security-related information as a state secret. The Iapa statement cites lawyers and experts consulted by Costa Rican media as questioning “the constitutionality and scope of the measure, arguing it should be supported by legislation approved by the Legislative Assembly rather than solely by an executive decree”. More generally, Iapa warns that the decree “threatens press freedom in Costa Rica”. This comes as Costa Rica has declined in recent press freedom rankings [SSR-26-07].

Fernández announces state secrecy decree over security

President Fernández announced that information related to various security bodies would become a matter of state secrecy in a decree published 10 August. The move affects information relating to the intelligence agency (DIS), the national public security council (CNSP), a high-level body chaired by the president, and a government task force named ‘Fuerza Élite.’ According to the decree, the documents and information affected include those related to “the operating methods of organised crime, and police dynamics of intelligence gathering and deployment, operational capabilities, special procedures, response plans, command structures, intervention protocols, technological resources, intelligence mechanisms [and] inter-agency coordination”, among other things. Fernández claimed that this is necessary to prevent leaks that would affect authorities’ ability to take on organised crime.