President Castillo
Dear Presidents of CELAC,
We are sending this brief letter from Buenos Aires to inform you of the seriousness of the judicial and political situation in Peru today. Congress continually threatens judicial autonomy.
The first rural president in the country’s history, Sierra teacher Pedro Castillo, was irregularly deprived of his constitutional mandate. The vacancy against him is void. It was not carried out in compliance with the process clearly established by the Peruvian Constitution. They also violated the rules of the Peruvian Congress (Article 89, Paragraph A). President Castillo was “vacated” with fewer votes than the minimum required by law. This has been acknowledged by the congressional prosecutor in a hearing. Even so, the legitimate, constitutional president, improperly removed, is arbitrarily imprisoned, facing an irregular criminal trial, which should not proceed, nullifying the constitutional process, which precedes it.
In the criminal case, the police chief who arrested the president acknowledged a few days ago that he didn’t know whether the president had already been removed from office or not: he arrested him anyway, violating presidential immunity. All the resolutions of the Peruvian Congress, beyond failing to comply with the required formalities, all occurred after the arrest, not before it. That’s why the arrest is very similar to a coup.
The minimum that can be demanded in any democratic republic is that presidents not be removed from office by any means, detained by the police, in violation of the constitutional procedures established for that purpose. Representation, the cornerstone of any democracy, is at stake. The prosecutor who accused Castillo was dismissed on charges of leading a criminal organization. The other prosecutor who accused Castillo before the criminal division of the Supreme Court has also just resigned. The crimes she is accused of are not defined.
The defense does not argue that they cannot remove or dismiss Castillo; they only argue that, if they want to do so, they must do so in accordance with the law, which, to date, has not happened. The removal of Castillo from office is constitutionally void. It has no legal validity. It is not a good precedent for Peru that presidents can be removed from office in any manner, violating the procedure established by the Constitution. This is an extremely sensitive case, and it is already beyond legal considerations (many accuse us of defending a “technicality,” but the only “technicality” we defend is none other than the popular will, clearly expressed at the ballot box, and full and strict respect for constitutional procedures), we believe your knowledge of the legal and political situation is important. Peru needs you.
Peru has prohibited “foreign lawyers” from visiting the country’s prisons. This rule did not exist until we two assumed Castillo’s international defense. It was an ad hoc rule, with the sole purpose of curtailing and harming Castillo’s legal defense. While Castillo remains illegally imprisoned, Fujimori, who had been convicted of serious crimes against humanity, including forced sterilizations of thousands of women, as AMPAEF warns (the health minister for those crimes condemned in October 2024 by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is, paradoxically, currently a congressman in Peru, and he voted for Castillo’s “permanent moral incapacity”), was pardoned. Castillo, who defeated his daughter Keiko at the polls, opposed this pardon, which is contrary to the Inter-American Convention. The reign of legal reversal.
The disapproval of the Peruvian Congress is massive, with a 94% rejection rate. It’s repeated in Lima that the indigenous people (Terrucos, cholos from the Sierra, etc.) “don’t know how to vote.” They spent more than 100 days (using this argument, with legal firms seeking to challenge the votes from the Sierra at all costs) recognizing Pedro Castillo’s electoral victory. No other president in history has had this done to him, nor have they seized his palace, as they did to him. They do it because he’s not from Lima. He’s not white. He’s not from Miraflores. Just as the 60 people killed in the protests, who are still awaiting justice, were not. They were all “cholos” from the Sierra.
A special hug to the presidents of Mexico and Honduras, two countries that have been, along with Colombia, at the forefront of this battle for regional democracy. Castillo deserves the minimum that any legitimate president in the world deserves: an impeachment trial according to law. No more, but no less. There was never a legal impeachment process, the first legal step to remove a president. No minutes, no process. We attach the “joke” published a few days ago by a newspaper (La República). Sometimes humor speaks louder than law.
Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni Guido Leon
