Since 1993, when the Public Ministry was formed, there have been two Attorney Generals and both were elected by the Congress without any rules governing the election process.

According the Law for the Public Ministry, the Attorney General is responsible for representing, defending and protecting the public interest and for collaborating in and monitoring the swift, correct and effective administration of the law. What the Honduran people have to ask now, given the way in which the election for the Attorney General was conducted is: Will we have a true application of Justice in this country?

What is the process for selecting candidates for the Attorney General?

The Law for the Public Ministry orders the creation of a Rule for the Organization and Function of the Nominating Board. Nonetheless, it was left to the Coalition to Strengthen Justice, a coalition of pro-democracy organizations, to propose the Rule in December of 2003. The Attorney General's office approved the Rule on December 13. Due to some technical errors in the document, the Attorney General issued a revised version of the Rule on December 23, 2003.

The Rule lays out a series of steps the Nominating Board should take in selecting candidates for the positions of Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General.

The manipulation begins

According to section III.6.a of the Rule, "The institutions represented on the Nominating Board cannot propose as candidates members of the Board or any person functioning as an authority within the organizational structure of the institution." Nonetheless, the members of the Nominating Board have clearly shown that they have no interest in respecting that kind of prohibition.

To everyone's surprise, on January 14, 2004, the Court for Administrative Complaints accepted the case brought by Pablo Valladares charging that the Rule should not be accepted as the base for electing the new Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General. The Court ordered that the Rule be suspended while it considers the case.

The Supreme Court admitted the case and gave the Nominating Board two options in the meantime: 1) draft its own rule to regulate the selection of candidates, or 2) select candidates without the guidance of a rule.

"The candidates were selected in an exhaustive process completely seperated from political interests," stated the Nominating Board upon releasing the list of candidates. There were five candidates from the National Party and four from the Liberal Party for Attorney General. For the Deputy Attorney General, there were four candidates listed from the Liberal Party and one from the Nationalist Party. The Congress accepted the nomination, even the the Nominating Board had made them without any rule or regulation.

In the opinion of Ana Pineda, the former Sub-commissioner for Human Rights, the Board acted "without the necessary transparency" because they never released the list of candidates to the public, in direct violation of the requirement in the Rule for the Public Ministry that the names be published in national media outlets.

The Rule permits the public to know the list of candidates and to make objections or propose their own candidates. However, in the face of this Rule, the Board nominated whomever was convenient for them.

"The list, more than any other thing, made it very clear that the next Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General will be chosen as part of another unscrupulous political maneuver," lamented Pineda. She and others familiar with the issue agreed that there would be no benefit for Honduras' already faltering democracy.

Pineda's opinion did not differ from the opinions of some Congressional representatives, from various parties, who complained that the election was little more than a foregone conclusion.

With the list of candidates in hand, the negotiations began in the Congress, including meetings behind closed doors to tie down votes.

But all the irregularities mentioned here seemed to worry only a few people and the election was carried out. Honduras has a new Attorney General, Ovidio Navarro. Navarro stepped down from his position as a Supreme Court Justice minutes after having been elected. The new Deputy Attorney General is Yury Melara, an activist in the Liberal Party. In this country, anything can happen.

What does that leave for the future?

Please Note:
1. The decisions made by the three arms of the government to fund the Attorney General's office at the necessary levels for proper functioning
2. The possibility that the Attorney General will serve the political purposed of the traditional parties
3. The behavior of the Attorney General in handling cases of national interest that involve political friends or members of the political party that elected the Attorney General
4. The apolitical nature of the post of Attorney General, including increased professionalism and technical ability in all areas and departments

Civil society faces these, and other, challenges to reach the next election for Attorney General with clearly defined rules that respect the law and open a space for democratic participation. If only it was possible that the next election for Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General be carried out as a popular election.

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