Peru's Junta Nacional de Justicia (JNJ), the National Board of Justice that oversees the appointment, ratification and discipline of the country's judges and prosecutors, is once again drawing criticism after board member Gino Ríos Patio proposed removing judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho.
Ríos Patio accuses the judge of unduly delaying an appeal filed by Mateo Castañeda against an order for his pretrial detention. Yet Peru's Autoridad Nacional de Control del Poder Judicial, the body that oversees conduct within the judiciary, had already archived a complaint from Castañeda's defense team over the same set of facts.
A judge under repeated scrutiny
Concepción Carhuancho is a judge known in Peru for presiding over high-profile criminal cases, and the current move against him is not the first. In June of this year, the JNJ suspended him for using an image of a brother of President Dina Boluarte during a public conference. Months later, it is now seeking his outright removal.
Each disciplinary file can carry its own legal justification taken on its own. But the string of actions against judges who handle cases involving political or economic figures raises the question of whether these are isolated, atypical proceedings or part of a broader pattern.
Oversight or persecution
The concern is that a body meant to police judicial conduct could instead become a tool for pressuring judges who issue rulings that prove inconvenient to people with political or economic power.
Judges must answer for their conduct and remain subject to rigorous oversight. At the same time, those who exercise that oversight must show they are applying objective, consistent and proportional standards. A judiciary kept under constant watch can lose its independence even before any sanction is actually imposed.
The question here is not whether Concepción Carhuancho deserves to be sanctioned. It is whether a disciplinary authority is being allowed to overpower the administration of justice itself.
The JNJ was created to operate strictly within the law, and that is the only way it preserves its essential role in Peru's democracy. For that reason, it needs to keep in mind that there is a line between sanctioning misconduct and pursuing persecution.
