Tegucigalpa, 11 Feb. The Honduran Parliament, made up of 128 deputies, failed this Saturday, during its third attempt, to elect the 15 new magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) for the period 2023-2030 due to lack of consensus between the main formations. .
MPs were unable to reach an agreement during today’s sitting, which started at 5:53 p.m. local time (2353 GMT), almost three hours late, with a minute’s silence in memory of the son of former MP Marlene Alvarenga who died today. supposedly after ingesting an energy drink.
Before the meeting began, tempers flared and ended up jostling between lawmakers Bartolo Fuentes of the ruling Libertad y Refundación (Libre, ruling) party and Jack Uriarte of Nacional without going too far.
Deputy Netzer Mejía, of Libre, presented a motion of fifteen candidates for the posts of magistrates of the Supreme Court, which did not have the support of the main opposition groups in Parliament, the National, Liberal and Salvador de Honduras parties .
Congresswoman Ariana Banegas, of the National Party, presented another nominative motion with numerous candidates proposed by Libre, but it was also not supported by the other benches.
After the rejection of the two lists, the President of Parliament, Luis Redondo, suspended the session and announced that next Monday the leaders of the benches will meet to agree on the day and time of the new session to elect the new magistrates of the Supreme Court. .
On Friday, the second attempt to elect the fifteen magistrates also failed until the support of the main opposition forces was obtained, as on January 25.
THEY DEMAND TRANSPARENCY IN THE PROCESS
The Honduran Parliament will choose the fifteen magistrates from a list of 45 candidates proposed in January by the Nominating Committee, for which it requires the vote of at least 86 of its 128 deputies.
After leaving the hemicycle, the free deputies moved to the lower part of the Parliament building, in the center of Tegucigalpa, where activists from this political institution expressed their support and shouted “we want a new Court”.
The Episcopal Conference of Honduras, international cooperation organizations and civil society ask the deputies that transparency and the common good prevail in the election of new magistrates.
The Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union (EU), the United Nations system and eight countries, including Spain and the United States, today urged political parties to “dialogue, avoid linguistic polarization and reach an agreement within the constitutional framework”. .
For their part, the Honduran bishops regret the absence of dialogue between the deputies and urge them to seek “peace and harmony” without losing sight of the fact that they are the representatives of an entire nation.
Since the return to democracy in 1982, the election of judges of the Supreme Court has been made after political negotiations between the national and liberal opposition parties, both conservative.
But in the current legislature, in which the two political institutions have 66 seats, they will have to negotiate with the other forces, mainly with the Free and Salvadoran parties of Honduras, which together represent 60 of the 128 deputies that make up Parliament.
The main problem is that no party has a majority in Parliament, so if there are no agreements, the 15 magistrates who had to leave office this Saturday after a seven-year term will continue to lead.