BATTLING A CANCER: TACKLING CORRUPTION IN
PERU, 2011-2014
Author: Blair Cameron
Overview
Reform Champions
“Corruption in Peru is like a cancer,” said Walter Alban, the former
ombudsman. “In the era of President Alberto Fujimori, it was a great
tumor. We removed it, but some cancer remained, so the corruption
continued to spread.”
After initial success in enforcing anticorruption laws from 2000 to
2009, Peru’s justice system struggled to curb corruption networks.
Ollanta Humala took office as president in 2011 and immediately put
transparency and fighting corruption at the top of his agenda by
strengthening the national anticorruption commission and by
announcing Peru’s intention to join the Open Government Partnership.
In 2012, the comptroller general, attorney general, and president of
the judiciary created a new joint prosecutorial team to bring public
officials accused of corruption to trial and set up a specialized
chamber to hear the cases. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice
strengthened its capacity to prosecute the misuse of public resources.
By 2015, this new subsystem was in operation and public prosecutors
were investigating several corruption scandals that reached the
highest levels of Peru’s government. However, Peru did not renew its
OGP commitment.
• Susana Silva, the former coordinator of the high-level anticorruption
commission, brought the leaders of the country’s justice sector
institutions together to improve coordination.
• Fuad Khoury, the comptroller general, worked with the attorney
general and the president of the judiciary, Cesar San Martin, to
expand a special chamber to hear anti-corruption cases and to
improve investigation and prosecution.
• Juan Jiménez, the former Minister of Justice and former Prime
Minister, and Julio Arbizu, appointed the chief state attorney for
anticorruption in 2011, worked together to consolidate and
strengthen the state attorney’s office.
Policy Problems
The institutions that were supposed to control corruption—the
judiciary, attorney-general’s office, the comptroller-general, and the
state attorneys in the Ministry of Justice—were unable to effectively
coordinate their efforts. Further, regional corruption networks
operated with impunity, buying favors and access and and diverting
state resources. The networks had infiltrated the prosecutor-general’s
office and the judiciary, which were prone to corruption.
OGP Commitment
As part of its 2012 Action Plan, Peru made three commitments to
increase public integrity by strengthening the judicial sub-system that
dealt with corruption:
• Improve the performance of prosecutors and courts and encourage
timely publication
• Hire a General Anti-Corruption Prosecutor to cover each of the
provinces in all judicial districts
• Disseminate information to the public about the outcome of
investigations for administrative offenses related to corruption
Key Challenges
The policy problems were hard to address for several reasons.
• Judges and public prosecutors lacked security of tenure.
• Rules prevented some of the institutions from communicating
effectively with each other.
• High staff turnover contributed to low capacity and made sustained
leadership of reform difficult.
• The design of the system meant that prosecutors and courts often
had to spend most of their time on small cases instead of dealing
with more serious and more complex cases.
The Palace of Justice in Lima, Peru. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Key Accomplishments
• Expanded the jurisdiction of the National Criminal Chamber to
include crimes against the public administration.
• Established a team of two supraprovincial public prosecutors in the
Attorney-General’s office to handle complex cases of corruption
involving government officials
• Improved communication and coordination among institutions
through better staffing, streamlined procedures, and new protocols
• Reorganized the state attorney’s office in the justice ministry and
created an anticorruption observatory for improved analysis and
investigative capacity
As of mid-2015 the supraprovincial public prosecutors were handling
approximately 23 high level corruption cases, with formal charges
announced in two cases and 21 under preliminary investigation.
OGP Contribution
In Peru, the OGP process played a relatively minor role in helping to
promote reforms already underway. The Humala administration’s
announcement in July 2011 that it would join OGP helped to
consolidate consensus around the need to improve public integrity.
Peru’s OGP Action Plan included elements of reforms already
underway, but it had limited impact on the implementation of reforms.
In July 2015, civil society groups rejected the government’s second
Action Plan because of President Humala’s opposition to a proposed
transparency authority. Still, Mariana Llona, a Secretariat staff
member, said joining the OGP was positive for Peru. “We started the
partnership well, but it decayed. We need to work on rebuilding trust
now… It’s going to be a great challenge to rebuild the partnership.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Professor Jennifer Widner, Director <[email protected]>
Email: [email protected]
Pallavi Nuka, Associate Director <[email protected]>
Website: successfulsocieties.princeton.edu