The recent decision by the Constitutional Court of Peru to affirm the pardon of former president Alberto Fujimori has triggered international backlash and debate over the prioritization of political agenda over human rights. This report on the controversial issue is provided by law students from the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas at the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco.
As a brief recap, in November 1991 and July 1992, acts of mass violence were committed by Grupo Clina, a right-wing death squad, in Barrios Altos, Lima, and against the students and faculty of the National University of Education Enrique Guzman La Valle, also known as La Cantuta. Despite the gravity of these crimes, they went uninvestigated, with the Peruvian government issuing amnesty laws that essentially provided impunity for the perpetrators.
These cases were later addressed by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in their rulings in “Barrios Altos Vs. Peru” (2001) and “La Cantuta Vs. Peru” (2007). The Court found that the Peruvian state had violated the American Convention on Human Rights with its amnesty laws and ordered investigations and punitive action against those responsible, which encompassed the tenure of former president Fujimori.
Fast forward to April 2009, Fujimori was found guilty and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. This penalty, however, was cut short by a pardon granted by former Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in December 2017. Despite initial objections from Peru’s Supreme Court of Preparatory Investigation, the Constitutional Court of Peru on March 17, 2022, approved Fujimori’s appeal for habeas corpus, amounting to his release from prison.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights swiftly responded on April 7, 2022, ordering the Peruvian state to refrain from executing the Constitutional Court’s sentence. This decision essentially allowed the sentence imposed on Fujimori to proceed as normal. However, in a new resolution on November 21, the Constitutional Court of Peru affirmed Fujimori’s pardon, effectively ignoring the directive from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
In contrast, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights required Peru to submit a report on the execution of the resolution that ordered the restoration of Fujimori’s punishment on November 29. It is evident that Peru’s Courts’ decision to overlook binding resolutions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which the country ratified under the American Convention on Human Rights, favor political advantages over the preservation of human rights. This behavior not only resurfaces the scenario of impunity over the deaths in Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, but also infers that Peru’s judiciary prioritizes political benefits over safeguarding human rights.
Please note that this report and its perspective reflect those of the students from the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas at the Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco and not necessarily the views of the respective news platform. For more details, read the full report here.