BATTLING A CANCER: TACKLING CORRUPTION IN PERU, Author: Blair Cameron Professor Jennifer Widner, Director Pallavi Nuka, Associate Director FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: “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. Overview 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 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. Reform Champions 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.” OGP Contribution 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. 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. Key Accomplishments 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. Key Challenges Website: successfulsocieties.princeton.edu The Palace of Justice in Lima, Peru. Source: Wikimedia Commons