Brazil & Southern Cone - March 2009 (ISSN 1741-4431)

President Fernando Lugo is engaged in a fierce struggle with the supreme court. Lugo claims he is trying to reform a partisan judiciary; the opposition claims his professed desire for an independent judiciary is just a smokescreen and that he is actually trying to stack the court with judges sympathetic to the ruling Alianza Patriótica para el Cambio (APC). The supreme court is currently dominated by affiliates of the Partido Colorado (PC).

Lugo has been engaged in gentle jousting with the judiciary since coming to power in August 2008, but this is rapidly becoming open hostility. He claims that far from interfering in another branch of government, he considers it a “genuine constitutional obligation" to depoliticise the judiciary. On 22 January, he called an extraordinary senate session in an endeavour to fill one of the nine positions on the supreme court which has been vacant since 2007, when Wildo Rienzi retired. His efforts were frustrated by the opposition, which refused to make quorum.

The issue is becoming more pressing as the five-year mandates of six of the current eight supreme court justices end in March. Lugo held a secret meeting with the three supreme court justices affiliated to the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) - part of the APC - in the presidential palace on 12 February.

In the immediate wake of this meeting, Alicia Pucheta, a PC justice, persuaded her peers to declare her “unmovable". This means she will retain her position for another 16 years until she retires at 75. She denounced Lugo's secret meeting as unconstitutional and blatant interference in another branch of government.

The president of the permanent commission of congress, Juan José Vázquez (PC) backed Pucheta. He called for Lugo to face a political trial (juicio polí­tico) for violating the constitution. Vázquez said Lugo had demonstrated an inability to lead the country adequately and should step aside for Vice-President Federico Franco.

The opposition insists Lugo is conspiring to stack the court with APC affiliates. Lugo claims the three justices asked him for the meeting. Either way, Pucheta's decision to have herself declared “unmovable" is part of a worrying trend by PC-affiliated justices to award themselves posts for life. This move is clearly an effort to thwart Lugo's intentions. PC Judge Antonio Fretes started the trend last January. Fretes was elected by his peers to the presidency of the supreme court in late February.

The interior minister, Rafael Filizzola, said it was an “institutional scandal" that the supreme court justices could vote to extend their own terms. Filizzola, a strident critic of the Paraguayan justice system, which he described as “expensive, slow and corrupt" shortly after being appointed last year, also insisted that the practice of political patronage to apportion judicial positions should be stamped out.

Congress could remove the justices by means of a juicio polí­tico but Lugo lacks the requisite two-thirds majority and both the PC and the Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (Unace), of former General Lino Oviedo, are resolutely opposed to judicial reform.

The PC opposes reform for obvious reasons: it dominates the judicial system and, most importantly, the supreme court. Unace opposes reform because Oviedo has become the most visible opposition figure since Lugo accused him last August of plotting a coup along with former president Nicanor Duarte and senior members of the judiciary (see sidebar). Oviedo might fear legal action being taken against him should Lugo manage to create the “independent, autonomous and free" judiciary he claims to favour.

Without a majority in congress, and facing the staunch opposition of the PC and Unace to judicial reform, the only real alternative for Lugo might be to turn to the Organization of American States (OAS) for assistance in restructuring the supreme court. He publicly mooted the possibility last September.

• Oviedo
  While President Lugo was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the return to democracy on 2 February, congress paid homage to 11 retired Generals, including Lino Oviedo, who attacked forces loyal to Alfredo Stroessner in February 1989 ending the dictatorship. This surreal sight was topped off when Oviedo promised to support another “popular uprising" if Lugo moved to amend the constitution to seek re-election in 2013. This followed Lugo's injudicious off-the-cuff remarks about the possibility of re-election.