Nicaragua's Highest Court Rules on Military Violation

By Brenda Lopez Romero

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - The Constitution of Nicaragua provides the right to search and receive information from its government. Based on this constitutional right, the Justices of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court found that the Military of Nicaragua had violated Article 66 of the Magna Carta (Nicaraguan Constitution). The Article reads that Nicaraguans have the right to truthful information. This right encompasses the liberty to search, receive and diffuse information and ideas, orally, in writing, by graphics, or by any other process of its election.

In its opinion, the Court stated that the Armed Forces more or less perverted the governmental institutions through its impunity, in part, due to the culture of secrecy that it continues to promote. Furthermore, the Act of Access to Public Information was also violated when the Military refused to reveal the statistics on the number of young men that had lost their lives during service in the Patriotic Military Service in the 1980s. 

The news agency, el Diario La Prensa, made the request for the information based on the enabling Act.

Gabriel Alvarez, constitutional rights scholar, stated that the Military's refusal can be brought to the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court and then to the Hall of Administrative Contention of the Supreme Court to seek relief and leave to enforce the constitutional right.

Most citizens do not have the resources or confidence in the judicial institution to continue the procedure, but Alvarez believes it is indispensable to continue the pursuit in order to change most of the country's institutional culture of secrecy in all branches and to a certain extent, its sense of impunity. According to Alvarez, officers routinely violate laws operating under the presumption that they will not be challenged before the law and the people. He warns officials to remember that the right of citizens to information and its equitable distribution is fundamental to sustain democracies. Some former military officers that specialize in security and human rights think that the resistance is due more in part to political protection of high ranking officials. 

Cairo Manuel Lopez, constitutional scholar and former president of the National Assembly also believes the Military violated the Constitution. Lopez indicated that the institutional culture of secrecy was inherited from the entrenched French culture of a strong central and secretive government.

Public Relations Director, Adolfo Zepeda, responds to requests for public information (PHOTO: La Prensa)

For more information, please see:

El Diario La Prensa - Ejército también viola Constitución - 26 Septiembre 2009

El Diario La Prensa - Ejército oculta cifra de muertos en SMP - 25 Septiembre 2009

El Diario La Prensa - Ejército debe “lavarse la cara” y revelar cifras - 31 Agosto 2009 

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