Arriaza Chicas was criminally charged for dereliction of duty. The prosecution said this resolution was due to procedural errors made by the Assembly in substantiating the urgency for the arrival of the Treasury Secretary.
The Fifth Justice of the Peace of San Salvador this afternoon definitively fired the director of the police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, for the crime of dereliction of duty for which he was criminally charged.
The judge argued that the Legislative Assembly’s order to rush the Secretary of the Treasury lacked factual and legal arguments.
After taking note of the resolution, the Public Prosecution Service believed that this was due to procedural errors by the Assembly in this case. “If the Legislative Assembly had based the pressure differently, the decision would certainly be different, because as the director of the police force, it is thanks to the constitution,” the prosecutor said in the case.
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After he fired Arriaza Chicas, the judge also rebuked him: “You must submit to the rule of law, not the people. Not worth a tweet, not worth a phone call. We do not live in a monarchy, you have to submit to the rule of law ”, he said to the police director who only lowered his head.
“If the (legislative) assembly had met the requirements of the process, my decision would probably be different. This is not a blank check so that he does not attend Assembly committees or follow orders, “the judge warned the police chief.
Faced with the negative verdict, one of the prosecutors in the case said that once they have the verdict in writing, they will make legal assessments to see if they appeal the court’s ruling.
The prosecutor said that, while it seemed paradoxical, what the judge said to the police director was a positive message for the country’s institutions.
Arriaza was criminally prosecuted by the prosecution for the offense of dereliction of duty after he refused to present Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya before a committee of the Legislative Assembly to answer for the use of public funds in the COVID emergency -19.
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The Commission instructed the Director of the PNC to have the Secretary of the Treasury appear; However, Arriaza did not obey the order for which he was being prosecuted. The committee examined the placement and allocation of funds in Letes, bonds and other securities issued by the government of El Salvador, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the prosecution, Arriaza Chicas apologized for complying with the order to capture Zelaya, arguing that the use of public force is governed by the principle of the ‘last ratio’, as a restriction on the exercise of power in relation to the fundamental rights and that with On the basis of the reasons put forward by Zelaya, as director of the police corporation he determined that the Minister of Finance had good reason not to attend the summons.
Arriaza Chicas’s lawyers, for their part, argued that the Assembly’s order for the director of police to urgently bring Minister Zelaya was not legal.
In parallel to the legal proceedings he faced for dereliction of duty, the Legislative Assembly recently approved an opinion that was later communicated to the country-accredited diplomatic corps and to the prosecutor’s office on the dismissal of Arriaza Chicas as police director for violation of human rights.
On December 17, delegates approved by 58 votes, 10 against and three abstentions the binding dismissal of the police chief, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, for “serious human rights violations” following the events of February 9. However, President Bukele stated that he would not obey this order.