news

The PTJ becomes the DIJ,
not without a challenge
by Eric Jackson

The move was bitterly opposed by Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez and most of her post-dictatorship predecessors, as well as most former PTJ chiefs. The law was one of very few things that have united the opposition to oppose the Torrijos administration --- it passed with only the 44 votes of the PRD and its Partido Popular coalition partner, which were more than enough in the 78-member legislature. Also lining up against the law were business and labor groups and human rights activists.

Under Panama's constitution the Attorney General (Procuradora General) is appointed by the president for 10-year term, subject to the assembly's approval, and may not be removed except for cause. The Minister of Government and Justice, on the other hand, is appointed by a president who only has a five-year term and serves during that administration at the chief executive's pleasure.

And what is this chief executive's pleasure? Noriega's boys. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Delgado Diamante, who was on Noriega's general staff and commander of the San Miguelito garrison, is the minister. Major Severino Mejía, Noriega's adjutant, is the vice minister. Under them, Major Luis Gordon is head of the penitentiary system, and other Noriega-era military or police officers head Immigration, the National Maritime Service coast guard, Tocumen Airport security and security details at several other ministries. The presidential guard and national spy agency, the Institutional Protection Service (SPI), is under the Ministry of the Presidency rather than Government and Justice, but that, too is headed former Panama Defense Forces officer José Gómez.

Law professor and human rights activist Miguel Antonio Bernal, who is an independent candidate for mayor of Panama City in 2009, summed up most of the criticism by calling the change a move toward "the control and centralization of power... to reinforce police brutality and human rights abuses." Toward the more conservative end of the political spectrum, a resolution of the Panamanian Business Executives Association (APEDE) complained that the change "throws away 17 years of advances in separation of powers."

Several high profile cases have law enforcement agencies resisting prosecutors' investigations, and with the change the people who are doing the detective work will now have different bosses. For example, the police who shot and killed an unarmed construction workers' union activist at the site of the Isla Viveros construction site --- a project in which President Torrijos's campaign manager Héctor Alemán is a partner --- will no doubt have an easier time, given that National Police director Rolando Mirones openly opposes the prosecutors' investigation of the incident. The same may apply to the SPI, whose agents killed a prominent architect who was being held hostage when they indiscriminately opened fire at the scene of a robbery near their Corozal headquarters.

Attorney General Gómez warned during the debate that the change is constitutional, and two lawsuits, one by MOLIRENA legislator Wigberto Quintero and another by former prosecutor Carlos Herrera Morán are now pending before the Supreme Court to make that case. The two lawsuits have been consolidated and assigned to magistrate Winston Spadafora, a Mireya Moscoso appointee who in any partisan battle would find himself outvoted by magistrates appointed by Martín Torrijos. However, the high court may not divide along party lines but may instead seek to protect its own constitutional turf: the PTJ was under the joint supervision of the Attorney General and the high court, with the magistrates having to approve the hiring or firing of PTJ chiefs.

The PTJ was beset by many scandals, including the mysterious apparent poisoning death of the head of its sensitive investigations unit, Franklin Brewster. That case suggested that international drug cartels had deeply infiltrated that law enforcement agency. It made the politics of calling for the PTJ's abolition a bit easier to sell --- except that the National Police and other divisions of the Ministry of Government and Justice have been hit by many scandals that indicate that they are just as compromised by organized crime.

The change from PTJ to DIJ is not an automatic process and, even if eventually approved by the courts, will take months to complete. There are ministry payrolls and retirement plans to consolidate. The National Police are conducting a "filtration" process that they say will exclude all PTJ agents under internal or prosecutorial investigation --- about one in five officers --- from joining the new unit. The PTJ has debts that were not provided for in the 2008 national budget. At the moment the National Police are conducting a series of audits. Mirones told La Prensa that in some cases there will be an attempt to find other government jobs for displaced PTJ personnel who don't get a position with the DIJ.