The judge who said ‘no’ to the Prosecutor’s Office
Judge Mariana Vieyra Valdés has just given a lesson in basic procedural law. In a move that smacks of a pyrrhic victory for the defense, he authorized reopening the investigation against former Vice Admiral Manuel Roberto Farías Laguna for three months.
The reason is as simple as it is scandalous. The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) had denied the lawyers full access to the file. Yes, you read that right. The institution that must prosecute organized crimes and fuel trafficking acted as if the right to defense were a privilege, not a guarantee.
The judge determined that the FGR must allow full consultation of the investigation folder and provide a detailed inventory.
Translation: show everything you’ve got. Or what they say they have. Because here is the detail that no official bulletin mentions. Why does a Prosecutor’s Office hide information in a case of this magnitude? Inefficiency? Strategy? Or is there something in those papers that bothers beyond the accused?
Farías Laguna is in the Altiplano, accused of organized crime and theft of hydrocarbons. These are serious charges, the type that usually come with spectacular operations and triumphalist press conferences. But judicial processes are not won with spectacle, but with evidence.
And the evidence, apparently, was under lock and key.
The judicial decision is important, yes. But more important is to ask why it was necessary. In a rule of law, transparency should not be a graceful concession from a judge. It should be the rule.
Now defense experts will have three months to review every last bit of digital evidence. Three months to see if what is in the folder matches what has been said in public.
Memory is short, but court records are not. We’ll see what they find when they finally open the boxes.
