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Judge Arrocha suspended by the high court, still in hiding
by Eric Jackson, from other media

Win a few, lose a few.

At first, with the Supreme Court's angry reaction to prosecutors searching their files on appellate judge Dulio Arrocha, it looked like the people who run this country's scandal-tainted judiciary were going to stand by one of their own, even if he has been practicing law and dispensing judgment for many years with a fake law degree. Indeed, we may not have heard the end of complaints that Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez abused her powers by ordering this search.

However, on March 9 the court did suspend Arrocha from his post on the Fourth District Superior Tribunal, which hears appeals from Los Santos and Herrera provinces.

Since the scandal broke in the news Arrocha has been nowhere to be found, but has had a relative and attorney, César Guardia, taking doctors' notes to prosecutors, explaining why Arrocha's high blood pressure prevents him from appearing at an indagatoria, a formal questioning by prosecutors that's part of a criminal trial procedure. The Public Ministry has expressed its intention to use such an event as the occasion to have Arrocha jailed pending trial.

After several such notes, prosecutors refused to accept any papers from Guardia. If Arrocha wants to assert a medical reason why he should not face criminal proceedings, Gómez asserted, he needs to show up in person to do so.

But that sent Guardia scurrying to the Supreme Court, which ruled that prosecutors must deal with the absent judge through his attorney. It was one more of a long line of rulings that holds that those with the right connections get to litigate and negotiate before Panama's legal system through lawyers while they themselves are fugitives. The practice is ever so useful to all parties concerned because, among other things, it allows a rich person on the run time to get the sufficient bribes lined up so that corrupt authorities get their money and well heeled fugitives avoid the inconveniences of places like La Joya.

Arrocha's suspension was handed down by the high court's penal bench, which applied a law requiring the suspension of judges who are facing criminal proceedings. Another petition by prosecutors, to strip Arrocha of his 1977 license to practice law on the basis that it was obtained with a supposed diploma from a Colombian law school that he never attended, remains pending before the Supreme Court's general business bench.

Otilda Vergara de Valderrama has been designated as Arrocha's replacement while the allegations against him are pending.

In the meantime, people who say that they were harmed by corrupt decisions handed down by Arrocha have begun to come forward and assert their public demands to have cases reopened. In one case, a farmer who lost 32 hectares of land near Chitre pursuant to a judgment by Arrocha and his colleague Judge Manuel Batista noted that this ruling was based on a supposed sale of land by a woman who on that alleged date of the transaction had been dead for many years. In general, the decisions of a judge who was unqualified to be on the bench but nevertheless was appointed to perform those functions will stand under Panamanian law, regardless of whether it was a crime for the person handing down the ruling to do so.

La Prensa reports that there is also concern among the students and alumni of the Universidad Latina's law school. Arrocha taught classes at that university's Chitre campus for several years, and now his former students are wondering if the credits they received for those classes are still valid. It's a potential headache for a university not particularly known for excellence or fair dealings with its students and faculty, but could be even worse for the courts if Arrocha's old students find their licenses to practice law impugned due to revoked class credits. It seems, however, that by the norms set for Panamanian academia by the University of Panama a fake degree is acceptable for most purposes. Thus we probably won't see a cascade of lawyer license revocations if the allegations against Arrocha prove to be true.