by Rod Hughes

As the new Minister of Public Security, Janina Del Vecchio, readies herself to take office as top cop, she should be looking forward to a new, 123-page comprehensive crime law now in committee. It was written by the best law-enforcement minds in the country and has everything but one provision—no funds, the the English-language weekly, The Tico Times reported last month.

Worse, the Legislative Assembly has only until the end of this month to draft the funding and the lawmakers do things so slowly that it will take an extra push from the government to accomplish the feat. The Tico Times editorially condemned the oversight and doubtless opinion-formers close to the deputies are applying pressure, but such is the agenda of the Legislative Assembly and political inertia that it may not happen until next year’s budget, if it occurs at all.

Of the law, Vice President Laura Chinchilla, formerly a minister of security and one of the writers of the bill, acknowledges, “It’s not perfect or infallible but we hope that it will be a launching point to arrive at an agreement. We think it’s time to create a balance of justice in favor of the victims, not just the accused.” High time, most Costa Ricans will agree, after years of watching criminals slip past the justice system through human rights loopholes big enough for a cruise ship.

Some provisions in the bill are pure common sense, such as prohibiting people with restraining orders from acquiring firearms and require all banks and financial institutions to keep documents and provide them to authorities upon official request. Some articles would require extra funds such as requiring all municipalities to have a police force paid for by a “special tax.” The chief of the Judicial Police (OIJ) Jorge Rojas says that the provisions would pay for themeselves although he did not offerr any concrete figures.

Rojas may be thinking of one overdue law change that would expand government power to seize, spend and invest proceeds from seized property from criminal enterprises. As it stands now, criminal codes allow confiscation of, for example, drug traffickers’ property and funds. But the law makes disposition of that seized property time-consuming and difficult.

Longtime residents will remember the example of the seizure of the home of Carlos Caro Quintero, a Mexican drug mogul who bought a rest and relaxation home in Costa Rica during the presidency of Daniel Oduber (1974-78). Mexico requested extradition and OIJ agents swooped down on the mansion and captured Caro Quintero without trouble. Then, by executive order, they shipped him off to the waiting arms of Mexican authorities, probably a violation of his human rights under the constitution, since it gave him no time to appeal.

But such was the Mexican drug lord’s notoriety that no one was outraged and expressed only relief at his absence. His cars and luxurious mansion were confiscated but such was the length of the process that no policeman could be detailed to watch the mansion. The furniture was the first to be stolen, quickly followed by doors, windows and even the Spanish roof tiles. Within a month, the home was reduced to a shell of naked concrete walls. So, poetic justice was foiled: To help the needy, the government might have used funds from the resale of the home of a man who only destroyed lives with his poisoned merchandise.