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C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 000053 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/02/19 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PHUM PINR BL
SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: NEW JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS RELATIVELY DIVERSE 
 
REF: 10 LA PAZ 31; 08 LA PAZ 2464 
 
DERIVED FROM: DSCG 05-1 B, D 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: President Evo Morales on February 18 announced 
temporary judicial appointments to fill eighteen vacancies in the 
Supreme Court, Constitutional Tribunal, and Judicial Council.  Most 
appointees drew praise for their qualifications and judicial 
independence.  Only five are declared members of the ruling 
Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, and approximately 40 percent 
are women.  Opposition leaders complained the action was 
unconstitutional and further concentrated Morales' hold on power, 
while GOB sources countered by arguing that the courts' deficit of 
over 20,000 pending cases called for swift action.  In December, 
Bolivians will formally reconstitute all three bodies through 
national elections.  End summary. 
 
New Appointments More Diverse Than Anticipated 
 
¶2. (C) President Morales' eighteen judicial appointments drew 
unexpected praise from a wide cross-section of media and legal 
sources.  Some feared that Morales would use the recently-passed 
"ley corta" -- which gives the president the authority to appoint 
judges directly until national elections in December (reftel) -- to 
stack all three bodies with allies and ideologues.  Instead, the 
appointees have been regarded generally as qualified and 
independent judicial thinkers.  Former Constitutional Tribunal 
president (and Morales foe) Silvia Salame said approvingly that 
"these are not people who will go down on bended knees easily [to 
Morales]," and that the appointments give a "balance" to the 
judiciary. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Supreme Court has been functioning with only six of 
its twelve members (with a seventh suspended), and its case load 
has grown precipitously.  According to official statistics, the 
Supreme Court has more than 13,000 pending cases, and over 8,000 
inmates remain detained in prisons awaiting final sentence.  Of his 
five appointments, Morales chose two judges believed to be 
sympathetic to the MAS and one Santa Cruz superior district court 
judge known for his independence.  Two of the appointees are 
relative political unknowns.  The five appointees are from 
geographically diverse areas, including Sucre, Oruro, Potosi, 
Cochabamba, and Beni.  When added to the existing members of the 
Supreme Court, it is unclear whether the Court will contain even a 
majority of MAS partisans. 
 
¶4. (C) The Constitutional Tribunal, which contains five titular 
magistrates and five alternates, lost its last remaining member 
with Silvia Salame's resignation (under protest) in May 2009. 
Salame and others charged the MAS with hounding them out of their 
positions in an attempt to remove judicial oversight over the 
Morales administration (reftel B), and the Constitutional Tribunal 
now faces over 5,000 pending cases.  Despite Salame's concern, none 
of the five titular magistrates nominated by Morales is reputed to 
be openly supportive of the MAS.  Instead, all five are well-known, 
experienced judges and lawyers, including one constitutional law 
specialist.  Bernardo Wayar, past president of the La Paz Bar 
Association and frequent Morales critic, said: "Whether or not the 
'ley corta' itself is constitutional, one has to say the 
appointments are generally good.  In the Constitutional Tribunal 
specifically, I don't see the appointees as affiliated with the 
government - and that is a good thing." 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Judicial Council, a disciplinary and legal oversight 
body headed by the president of the Supreme Court and four Council 
members, had three vacancies.  Morales' three appointments are all 
known as MAS supporters, including a former MAS party advisor, a 
member of Morales' inner circle, and the first indigenous female to 
be appointed to the Council.  The Judicial Council is not as 
prestigious as the other two bodies, but it has responsibility to 
sanction or fire members of the judicial branch (except those from 
the Supreme Court and Constitutional Tribunal).  Opposition members 
charged that the role of the Judicial Council would now be to 
ensure that the Supreme Court and Constitutional Tribunal do not 
 
stray too far from MAS preferences. 
 
Opposition Fears Unrealized... For Now 
 
¶6. (U) Despite the overall praise for most of the appointees, the 
opposition continued to criticize the 'ley corta' (and the 
appointments themselves) as unconstitutional.  Many said that 
Morales' ability to appoint judges directly signaled his desire to 
further concentrate of power.  In news reports, opposition Deputy 
Jaime Navarro (Unity party), said the law "directly injected" the 
executive branch into the affairs of the judiciary.  Former Vice 
President Victor Hugo Cardenas agreed, saying if such steps 
continued, democracy in Bolivia "would pass into history."  Still, 
several contacts admitted their relief that Morales stalwarts such 
as former Defense Minister Walker San Miguel had not been chosen 
and that "the situation could have been much worse." 
 
Comment 
 
¶7. (C) Despite opposition predictions that Morales' appointments 
are "a smokescreen," and that he plans to name much more 
ideologically "in-tune" candidates for the December elections, it 
appears that these appointments represent a broad swath of the 
Bolivian legal community, both in terms of judicial outlook and 
geography.  Morales campaigned on an efficiency and anti-corruption 
platform, including in the judiciary, and these appointments seem 
designed more to implement that pledge than to stack the judiciary 
with MAS hardliners.  Still, the fact that they are temporary 
appointments does leave them potentially more vulnerable to 
political pressure or manipulation. 
Creamer