UN rapporteur warns of influence over prosecutors

Satterthwaite – This is one of the things that actually does concern me most in the sense that when you have a reform that changes, in particular, a special prosecution office that has designed capacities, investigation processes, and the ability to go after important issues like corruption, to reform that in the middle of important investigations starts to appear to be an interference in that investigation. Now, it may be that a reform is meant to improve a system, but if so, it should not interfere in the current ongoing investigations. And what we’ve seen here is that it has done so. And that as you said a number of these really important investigations appear to be heading into some delays perhaps being dismantled. We don’t actually know the details but that really has blocked some of this important work. In cases of potential corruption, in cases of potential high-level crimes, what you always want to see is the most protected, independent, and impartial service possible. And so when that gets dismantled, it raises a lot of problematic issues and really raises questions about the right to free and fair trial, the right to equal access to the protection of the law in the country as a whole.