Spadafora's attacks on the press put spotlight on high court corruption

Spadafora's moves against the press put high court corruption at center stage

by Eric Jackson, in part from other media

Back in March of 2001, El Panama America published a story by Jean Marcel Chéry and Gustavo Aparicio about how a the Social Investment Fund (FIS) was building a 4.6-kilometer road from La Arenosa around the southwestern shore of Gatun Lake that passed the properties of only nine people, mainly the farms of then Comptroller General Alvin Weeden and then Minister of Government and Justice Winston Spadafora. All sorts of arguments were proffered, including the claim that more than 600 people lived along the road, which was refuted by follow-up stories featuring, among other things, some very telling aerial photography. Spadafora charged Chéry and Aparicio with criminal defamation, or calumnia e injuria as it is known here.

At their trial some years later, Chéry had moved on to work for La Prensa and Spadafora had been raised through a very controversial process to become a magistrate on the Supreme Court. Because of the way the lower courts are organized under the supervision of the Supreme Court here, the trial judge ran the risk of retaliation from above if the verdict didn't go Spadafora's way. Be that as it may, the trial ended with an odd verdict of acquittal on the calumnia charge (making a false and defamatory report) but guilty on the injuria count (making a true report that harms the reputation of one of the high and mighty in Panamanian society). Chéry and Aparicio received one-year prison sentences.

That verdict touched off an international furore, especially as the chances of an appeal to the Supreme Court, including the journalists' accuser, looked particularly futile. However, by virtue of a treaty Panama has made the court of last resort in cases like these the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, and there were hopes that when this egregious matter got before that tribunal Panama's criminal defamation laws would be struck down.

But it didn't get that far, because in late August of last year Mireya Moscoso pardoned Chéry, Aparicio, the writer of this story and about 70 other journalists facing similar charges during her last days in office.

Spadafora, his attempt to invoke the penal law for revenge thus thwarted, filed a $2 million civil lawsuit against EPASA (the parent company of El Panama America), Chéry and Aparicio.

Fast forward nearly one year, and Spadafora was under sharp criticism for a most unusual decision in which he cancelled his close friend Jean Figali's multi-million-dollar debt to the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI) for unpaid rent on land at Amador which includes the ground upon which the Figali Convention Center sits. The decision was controversial as a matter of procedural law because the Administrative Bench which Spadafora heads has a narrow jurisdiction to review official acts of public agencies, but as ARI had passed no resolution and taken no action with respect to Figali's debt, some legal scholars say that Spadafora exceeded his subject matter jurisdiction.

To La Prensa and a good section of the Panamanian public, however, the real issue is conflict of interest, in that Spadafora didn't do the ethical thing and disqualify himself from hearing a case involving his friend. On August 16 the daily ran a two-page article, mostly by Guido Bilbao, about Spadafora, his rise to political prominence, his friendships and his performance on the high court. The story featured a photo taken at the Figali Convention Center in which Figali, Spadafora and Supreme Court magistrate Alberto Cigarruista were seen sitting next to one another. (At the other end of the same table, in the background of the photo, one can see Panama City Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro.) The net effect was scathing.

The following day Chéry was informed that a judge had issued an order garnishing his wages from La Prensa in relation to Spadafora's civil suit arising from the La Arenosa road story.

The offensive was continued on the radio by Spadafora's lawyer, former Attorney General Rogelio Cruz, and his daughter, former Casco Viejo Office head Vanessa Spadafora. On former Mayor Mayín Correa's KW Continente station they announced that they had obtained an order from Migracion to have Bilbao thrown out of Panama.

Bilbao is an Argentine citizen working for La Prensa under the rule that allows companies to hire up to 10 percent of their work force from among foreign citizens who would otherwise not be eligible for permits to work here.

Protests were lodged on the national and international levels. The Inter-American Press Association, Human Rights Watch, the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of the Press and Reporters Without Borders were some of the international groups to condemn Spadafora's moves. Joining them were a long list of Panamanian civic groups. The Sindicato de Periodistas and Colegio de Periodistas, both of which are ferociously xenophobic to the point that they are against any foreign journalists working here and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of this country's English-language and Chinese-language media, staged a demonstration in support of Chéry but held their silence about the attempt to expel Bilbao.

Whatever strings may have been pulled with immigration authorities --- and Migracion has been notoriously corrupt and subject to improper influences for a very long time --- they were apparently very quickly cut in this case. The day after Cruz and Ms. Spadafora flaunted their alleged immigration documents, Bilbao received his work permit from the government.

Reacting to the news of Spadafora's latest attacks on the press while at an August 17 ceremony handing out civil service credentials to several hundred Ministry of Health employees, President Torrijos said that he is very concerned about freedom of expression in this country, and cited as proof of his concern recent legislation to eliminate such "gag laws" as the power of public officials to have journalists jailed for disrespect if they publish unflattering stories and the last remnants of the dictatorship's journalist licensing scheme. "We will continue to do our work, and that which is within the reach of the executive branch, to guarantee solutions so that freedom of expression can exist," he said.

Last year's constitutional reforms specifically gave the legislature and the president a power that had long been presumed, that to increase the membership of the Supreme Court. Torrijos came to office with a 5-4 majority of Mireya Moscoso appointees on the high court, with terms that would have kept the court aligned that way for the remainder of his five years in office.

However, the president invoked a mandatory retirement age to remove one of the Mireyistas, César Pereira Burgos, and replace him with an appointee of his own, Esmeralda de Troitiño. But the high court is still an embarrassment for Torrijos, who ran for office on a "zero corruption" pledge, and the frequent target of criticisms from across the wide spectrum of Panamanian public opinion that opposes the prevailing culture of bribery and influence peddling. Sooner or later the National Assembly --- which has a sordid reputation of its own --- is expected to take up the question of judicial reform, and the Spadafora case may make it sooner.

To pack the high court by appointing new judges takes only a simple majority vote in the assembly, but to convict a magistrate in an impeachment trial requires a two-thirds vote. The last time that was tried, in the case of magistrate José Manuel Faúndes --- who was caught negotiating a $20,000 bribe to let a Colombian drug trafficker out of jail on wiretap tapes that were played before the nation --- the impeachment vote broke down mostly along partisan lines and the majority of those voting to find the judge guilty was not enough for a conviction.

In Spadafora's case there is an added twist. His nomination to the Supreme Court was controversial because he was a frequent date for then President Mireya Moscoso, who was accused by former Vice President Ricardo Arias Calderón and much of public opinion of putting her boyfriend on the high court. The ratification was accomplished by way of several defections from the PRD ranks, and Balbina Herrera, then a legislator and now the housing minister, alleged that bribes were paid to ratify the appointment. The investigation of those bribery allegations was in the first instance sabotaged by our pro-corruption Attorney General at the time, José Antonio Sossa, and in the end quashed by the Supreme Court on the theory of legislative immunity. But could the National Assembly now by majority vote rule that the ratifications of Winston Spadafora and Alberto Cigarruista (who were confirmed at the same time) were improperly approved and as such are null and void? That would be a new tactic, but not a great surprise in light of even stranger events that have characterized Panamanian political history.

Wherever the political fallout of Spadafora’s recent actions may land, however, one thing that seems certain is that his attempts to intimidate the press will not force reporters to lay off of him.

Also in this section:
Spadafora's moves against the press put high court corruption in focus
Three Panamanians die in Panmax 2005 maneuvers
Fraudulent diploma scandal deepens, expands
Colon's disappearing mangroves
Panama News Briefs