by Rod Hughes

A bill that would turn the country’s top prosecutor into a political puppet was filed in December by a close associate of ex-President Rafael Angel Calderon. Congressman Bienvenido Venegas. The lawmaker denied that Calderon even knew of the filing,

The bill would change the prosecutor (the equivalent of the Attorney General of the U.S.) immediately and allow congress to name him. Currently the post is filled by a majority of the Supreme Court and, indeed, some doubt exists that it would be constitutional due to separation of goverrnment branches.

What makes the suspicion that Calderon might have instigated the proposed law is that the ex-president faces corruption charges and is known to bitterly resent present head prosecutor Francisco Dall’Anese. Moreover, the bill would seriously limit the investigative powers of the prosecutor post by allowing government to class inconvenient information as “a state secret” at official whim without explanation.

The bill itself is is slavishly copied from a Venezuelan law, even down to specifying fines in that country’s currency, the bolivar. Venegas owned up to having made an error in this regard.

Before the last election, Calderon, even under house arrest, wielded great political power within his Social Christian Unity Party, even to handpicking most of its congressional candidates for their loyalty. Venegas was one.

Although Venegas insists that his motive was to strengthen the prosecutor’s department of the court, it is difficult to imagine it doing anything less than eviscerating that office. “If the deputies (congressmen) name the Attorney General every four years, then he would not have an automatic re-election and he would be catering to the congressmen to get re-elected,” Dall’Anese said.

Mario Mena, head of the Judicial Employees’ Union agrees, noting that it would cripple the preosecutor’s office in investigations of “the country’s politicians.” Chief Justice Luis Paulino Mora also saw the bill as a weakening of the Prosecutotr General’s office.