Constitutional Chamber Censures Caja
by Rod Hughes
Freedom of speech is alive and well in Costa Rica. The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court has severely censured the Social Security Administration (Caja) for prohibiting one of its officials from being interviewed by a newspaper in its headquarters building.
Last Dec. 20, a daily newspaper La Pensa Libre reporter asked Caja official Edgar Trejos for an interview but his superiors first prohibited Trejos from talking with the reporter, then begrudged him a place in the building in which to be interviewed. “We had to go outside,” remembers Trejos, “almost in Second Avenue to complete the interview.”
This is not the first time the Caja has run afoul of the freedom of expression Constitutional clause while trying to muzzle an official. Last August, the court blasted the Caja for preventing a financial officer to talk about pensions and the general state of the institution’s finances on two occasions in 2005.
Nor is the Caja the only governmental agency to get a slap from the magistrates for a gag order, reports the dailu paper La Nacion. In May, 2006, the National Georgraphical Institute incurred the court’s ire for reprimanding two employees for talking to the press.