LatinNews Daily Report - 16 December 2013

POLITICS| TC rules on judges’ salaries. On 12 December Peru’s constitutional court (TC) ruled that the government would have to raise the salaries of the country’s judges to bring them into line with those earned by supreme court magistrates, in accordance with the country’s organic law of the judiciary. The ruling comes after years of wrangling between the judicial and legislative branches of the State, and stipulates the release of PEN87m (US$31m) from the government to fund the salary increases. In a communiqué, the judiciary said that the TC’s decision represents a “fair and thorough compliance with the rulings and laws associated with the rule of law”. It also affirmed that the funds for the rise in salaries had been properly budgeted and would not, as the Economy Minister Luis Miguel Castilla and others within the executive had claimed in recent weeks, pose a threat to the country’s finances or trigger inflation. However, the ministry of justice (Minjus) has claimed that the TC’s sentence “cannot be applied” as it contradicts a new law passed by congress on the same day that spells reforms to the judiciary, including terms relating to the salaries of judges.