{"id":177210,"date":"2025-10-31T01:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/sin-categoria\/two-years-after-murillos-intervention-nicaraguas-supreme-court-remains-paralyzed-and-under-regime-control\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T04:32:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:32:01","slug":"two-years-after-murillos-intervention-nicaraguas-supreme-court-remains-paralyzed-and-under-regime-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confidencial.digital\/en\/english\/two-years-after-murillos-intervention-nicaraguas-supreme-court-remains-paralyzed-and-under-regime-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years After Murillo\u2019s Intervention, Nicaragua\u2019s Supreme Court Remains Paralyzed and Under Regime Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Supreme Court of Justice in Nicaragua remains intervened and paralyzed by the dictatorship, two years after the \u201chumiliating\u201d removal of its president, Alba Luz Ramos, and a massive purge that \u201cis still ongoing.\u201d In this \u201cannihilated\u201d court, there are inoperative departments, magistrates who receive salaries but do not sign anything without authorization from the \u201cCo-Presidency,\u201d and a constant fear of further dismissals, interrogations, and jail orders. All of these are conditions that Nicaraguan jurists and analysts in exile see as \u201cshowing no signs of renewal.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\u201cThere is a total paralysis of the CSJ (\u2026) The magistrates barely go to their offices and are not allowed to sign rulings without approval from El Carmen,\u201d a source linked to the Court told CONFIDENCIAL.<\/p>\n\n

Several sources also confirmed that the Supreme Court\u2019s chambers are not holding sessions, and that the National Council for Judicial Administration and Career is not meeting either.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt is a failed institution and almost completely inoperative,\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n\n

Two years with an \u201cacting president\u201d<\/h2>\n\n

After more than three decades as a magistrate of the Judiciary, Alba Luz Ramos was removed from her office during a police operation ordered by Rosario Murillo <\/a>on October 24, 2023.<\/p>\n\n

Following the fall of the CSJ president, Vice President Marvin Aguilar was identified as the \u201cacting president,\u201d in what seemed like an immediate promotion. However, Aguilar was never formally elevated and \u201calso fell from favor,\u201d although after a brief period of absence he reappeared\u2014albeit sidelined\u2014in some official activities. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cHe is a decorative figure, with no role beyond attending public events and, like the other magistrates, signing any document or ruling directed from El Carmen,\u201d a judicial source said.<\/p>\n\n

Another jurist familiar with the Court\u2019s situation told CONFIDENCIAL<\/strong> that \u201cMarvin Aguilar tried to exercise his power and assemble a group of followers he appointed, but with the experience Alba Luz had accumulated, they no longer allowed anyone to accumulate that much power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\u201cRosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega\u2014because I don\u2019t see them acting separately\u2014do not allow anyone to have a concentration of power that could challenge them in the future,\u201d added the jurist.<\/p>\n\n

The source linked to the CSJ maintains that Aguilar, \u201clike the rest of the magistrates, currently has no capacity for independent action, decision, or maneuvering, unlike in 2023,\u201d when he was the powerful political secretary of the FSLN in the Judiciary and a channel for transmitting orders from El Carmen, in coordination with N\u00e9stor Moncada Lau<\/a>, presidential security advisor, who was also caught up in Murillo\u2019s \u201cpurge.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Empty Seats and Magistrates Who Keep Collecting Salaries<\/h2>\n\n

By the end of 2023, the CSJ had seven of its 16 seats vacant, including that of the ousted magistrate president and six positions left empty for several years due to deaths and resignations.<\/p>\n\n

The list later grew with the addition of magistrate Gerardo Arce Casta\u00f1o, brother of the commander of the National Directorate of the Sandinista Front in the 1980s and presidential economic advisor Bayardo Arce, who has been imprisoned since late July 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

However, the reform to the Political Constitution, approved by orders of Ortega and Murillo between late 2024 and early 2025, reduced the number of CSJ magistrates from 16 to 10.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Currently, there are eight \u201cactive\u201d magistrates: Marvin Aguilar; Juana M\u00e9ndez (reinstated after a brief resignation<\/a> in an attempt to preside over the Central American Court of Justice); Armando Ju\u00e1rez L\u00f3pez; Armengol Cuadra; and Ellen Joy Lewin Downs. Additionally, Yadira Centeno, Manuel Mart\u00ednez, and Virgilio Gurdi\u00e1n, who were temporarily sidelined during the 2023 intervention, now attend the CSJ sporadically, with their salaries intact. <\/p>\n\n

Joining them is Patricia Delgado S\u00e1enz, wife of deputy and president of the Sandinista Front caucus in the National Assembly, Edwin Castro. Delgado, in her capacity as a substitute judge, has the authority to replace magistrates and serves as an \u201cacting magistrate,\u201d although she has not been officially sworn in. <\/p>\n\n

Proposals for the new magistrates have been awaited since November 2023, before the \u201cChamuca\u201d Constitution reduced the number of seats. However, the list continues to be delayed due to the ongoing power struggle between the dictatorial couple, now proclaimed as \u201cco-presidents.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

\u201cOrtega and Murillo are fully sharing control over the Judiciary, which has ceased to be under Ortega\u2019s exclusive oversight (\u2026) It could be said that, as of today, Murillo has much greater control over the Court and the tribunals,\u201d the source linked to the CSJ commented.<\/p>\n\n

Murillo\u2019s Intervention Keeps the CSJ Paralyzed<\/h2>\n\n

The \u201capproval\u201d from El Carmen\u2014the residence and office of Ortega and Murillo\u2014reaches the magistrates through the new administrative secretary-general and political secretary of the FSLN in the Judiciary, R\u00f3ger Mart\u00ednez.<\/p>\n\n

Additionally, in a new restructuring of officials led by Fidel Moreno, 60 judges without a judicial career were appointed in July 2024. Moreno serves as the FSLN\u2019s organization secretary, acting under Murillo\u2019s orders. <\/p>\n\n

The source linked to the CSJ commented that \u201call of this severely affects the Court and the \u2018judicial body\u2019 as a whole, because it has become an almost completely inoperative institution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Constitutional lawyer Juan Diego Barberena, who has been following this crisis, notes that \u201cwhat the regime needs is to have an inoperative judicial system, and for the Supreme Court of Justice, as the main judicial body that the State theoretically has, to lack the capacity even to convene chambers to issue minimal, purely procedural rulings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The judicial source adds that this paralysis <\/a>undermines \u201cthe constitutional right to Effective Judicial Protection, access to justice, and the resolution of cases within the timeframes established by law, especially those brought before the Court,\u201d including Criminal and Civil Cassation, Administrative Contentious Appeals, Writs of Amparo, Constitutional Challenges, and others.<\/p>\n\n

According to the specialized source, \u201cthe rates of delayed justice, which had been gradually decreasing between 2010 and 2017, are now at very high levels, not only in the CSJ but across all judicial instances\u201d in Nicaragua.<\/p>\n\n

Barberena also maintains that \u201cthere was no judicial independence, because it had already been effectively abolished by the Ortega-Murillo regime slightly before 2018, and later it was instrumentalized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Fewer Functions, Departments, and Budget<\/h2>\n\n

After Ramos was removed, Murillo accelerated her intervention in the Court, stripping the institution of functions, departments, and resources. <\/p>\n\n

In October 2023, the National Assembly approved the Law on the Assignment of the National Registry System (SINARE), which ordered the transfer of the administration of all public registries from the Supreme Court of Justice to the Attorney General\u2019s Office (PGR). <\/p>\n\n

In January 2024, the dictatorship also eliminated the minimum 4% of the General State Budget that was legally allocated to the justice system. Months later, in April, it ordered the transfer of the Directorate for Alternative Conflict Resolution (Dirac) to the \u201csuper\u201d PGR, later renamed the Attorney General\u2019s Office of Justice,<\/a> under the direct control of the \u201cCo-Presidency,\u201d led by Wendy Morales<\/a>, another loyal appointee of Murillo. <\/p>\n\n

\u201cIn the transition stage from Daniel Ortega to the dynastic succession, they cannot tolerate any alternative centers of power, no matter how small,\u201d a Nicaraguan jurist in exile told CONFIDENCIAL<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

The final blow was reducing the Judiciary to a mere \u201corgan\u201d of the State in the new \u201cChamuca\u201d Constitution.<\/p>\n\n

For lawyer Barberena, \u201cthese were the first steps to guarantee the dynastic succession on the political level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

He adds, \u201cThey have not appointed a new president of the Supreme Court of Justice because what the Ortega-Murillo regime needs\u2014now on a more political level, after securing the succession legally through the approval of the Chamuca Constitution\u2014is to have an inoperative judicial body.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

The Purge of Public Employees Has Not Stopped<\/h2>\n\n

The purge within the judicial apparatus has a long history. In October 2021, magistrate Gerardo Rodr\u00edguez Olivas, president of the Managua Court of Appeals (TAM), was dismissed. For years, Rodr\u00edguez had been a loyal operative of the regime, but he lost his position for processing a writ of amparo regarding the revocation of legal status of the Citizens for Liberty party (CXL). <\/p>\n\n

In 2022, the following officials also \u201cfell\u201d:<\/p>\n\n