New York. The Foreign Minister of Honduras, Enrique Reina, together with a representative of the United Nations, signed a declaration of intent to set the course for the establishment of an International Commission against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH). This means that President Xiomara Castro is getting closer to implementing one of the issues she was pushing during the election campaign.
“We have reached agreements to select international experts who will investigate the wide-ranging public and private corruption networks that have been ravaging the country,” Castro wrote on his Twitter account after the signing last Thursday.
The CICIH is expected to be established in the first half of 2023. The MoU foresees two phases: in the first, the UN will send a team of experts to Honduras to analyze existing tools, institutions and national capacities in the fight against corruption and impunity. The decisive factor will be the election of the 15 judges of the new Supreme Court in January 2023, who will be elected for the next seven years.
The team of experts will assist in the race for legislative reforms, such as the abolition of Decree 116-2019, a controversial regulation that protects MPs and former MPs under investigation for misappropriation of public funds. Furthermore, the penal code needs to be reformed and the law on effective cooperation needs to be adopted.
Once this legal framework is in place, the agreement between the government and the United Nations will be ratified in a second phase and the commission will be able to start its work.
In the twelve years of previous governments led by the National Party, the impression was given that the officials of the various departments apparently served each other undisturbed. In 2015, the looting of the social security institution led to massive nationwide protests, which could only end when then-President Juan Orlando Hernández declared his support for an international commission to fight corruption.
Many cases of corruption, including the Pandora case, the Parliamentarian network or the Gualcarque fraud involving representatives of all political parties, have been brought to light by the MACCIH anti-corruption mission (2016 – 2020) of the Organization of American States. Strong opposition in Congress and back-to-back legislation made it impossible for prosecutors and the justice system to proceed, leading to the acquittals of those convicted of corruption. Finally, in January 2020, his term ended because Congress did not approve a second stint for the anti-corruption mission (america21 reported).
