The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Laura Dogu, urged the National Congress to elect with the qualified majority the new deputy attorney general and attorney general, positions that remain unrenewed due to the lack of legislative consensus.
The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Laura Dogu, urged the National Congress to elect with the qualified majority the new deputy attorney general and attorney general, positions that remain unrenewed due to the lack of legislative consensus.
The United States has been calling for the election of Honduras’ new deputy attorney general and attorney general with a qualified majority of 86 of the 128 deputies in Parliament. The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Laura Dogu, urged Congress to elect the new attorney general and deputy attorney general with a qualified majority vote.
“It is important that they (the deputies) have started working again and we are all in this country waiting 86 votes (from Congress) to elect the prosecutor,” said the U.S. diplomat.
The United States has been requesting the election of the new Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of Honduras with a qualified majority of 86 of the 128 deputies of the National Congress.
The Attorney General and the deputy had to be elected no later than 31 August 2023, to assume on 1 September of that year, but it was not possible because of the lack of consensus among the benches of the parties that make up the Legislative.
Standing Committee
The Standing Committee of the National Congress, made up of 9 official deputies, unanimously appointed Johel Zelaya as Attorney General and Mario Morazán as deputy prosecutor, both on an interim basis, on November 1, 2023.
Most opposition forces did not recognize the Standing Committee created by the head of the legislature, Luis Redondo, or the two new interim prosecutors. So far it is unknown when the two new prosecutors will be elected on property.
Illegal selection?
According to an annual report by Transparency International (TI), released on January 30, 2024, the authorities of the Honduran Public Prosecutor’s Office were elected by Congress “without any transparency and illegal.”
“Honduras has also faced a significant weakening of the system of institutional weights and counterweights. The increasing capture of Congress by the executive branch has allowed the appointment of the Attorney General by the legislature without any transparency and illegality,” the report stresses.
He adds that Honduras also “lives increasingly frequent attacks against the press and grassroots organizations that question power to account, thus consolidating the authoritarian trend in North Central America.”
Honduras did not advance the fight against corruption, so it obtained a rating of 23 points of 100, as did the previous year, according to the Corruption Perception Index.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in Tunota