a case of that nature is allowed to continue under the Code of Criminal Procedure.4 They add that the Fourth Criminal Examining Court of El Alto denied the motion on August 13, 2005 on the grounds that the alleged victim had caused the delay by her “excessive precaution.” 2. The Guaglio Case (Ham v. Monroy) 19. The petitioners report that this case concerns the siphoning of money from the General Pension Fund into private accounts. They note that on December 14, 1999, while Mrs. Andrade was Mayor of La Paz, she was told that checks for amounts in excess of a half million dollars were being deposited into those private accounts. She therefore reported the fraud to the Judiciary Police (Policía Técnical Judicial – PTJ), to the Office of the Superintendant of Banking, to the Special Financial Investigation Unit (hereinafter the “UIF”) and to the Office of the Internal Auditor. The petitioners state that following the preliminary investigation, the reports were referred to the Judicial Branch. However, neither the complaint, the original writ instituting preliminary proceedings nor the UIF report mentioned Mrs. Andrade. 20. The petitioners observe that the foregoing notwithstanding and as a consequence of heavy political pressure and the bias of the Third Criminal Examining Judge –who started the preliminary criminal proceedings in the Gader case- the case was inexplicably moved to the Superior Court, to institute a special “Court Case”5 against Mrs. Andrade. They add that on June 20, 2000, the Constitutional Court declared “Court Cases” unconstitutional, which is why all the proceedings thus far conducted in the “Court Case” were declared null and void and the case was docketed again with the regular court system. Mrs. Andrade had not been named in that case. The petitioners therefore asked that she be excluded from the case. What happened was just the opposite: the Eighth Criminal Examining Judge added Mrs. Andrade’s name to the indictment and required alternative measures of her. 21. The petitioners state that on January 28, 2004, the alleged victim was acquitted of the crime of “dereliction of duties” but convicted of the crime of “mismanagement of funds.” The available information indicates that Mrs. Andrade filed a parallel appeal to challenge the conviction and a motion to have the criminal case time-barred on the grounds of an unwarranted judicial delay. The September 9, 2005 decision on this last request, delivered by the Second Criminal Chamber of the La Paz District Superior Court, did not go in Mrs. Andrade’s favor. The court argued that the delay was caused by the remedies filed by the defendant. The decision on the appeal, delivered by the Second Criminal Chamber of the District Superior Court on September 11, 2006, acquitted Mrs. Andrade of the crime of “mismanagement of funds.” 3. The Street Lamps Case 22. According to the petitioners’ account, this case involved the purchase of street lamps for the city of La Paz. The purchase was made by former Mayor Germán Monroy. He paid for the purchase with an unauthorized advance of one million dollars made to the firm’s representative. The petitioners state that Mrs. Andrade was at the time the Chair of the La Paz City Council and that on July 5 and September 24, 1999, she had requested, respectively, an internal audit and a court order voiding the contract. They further contend that although there was no evidence According to the petitioners, the Third Transitory Provision under the previous Code of Criminal Procedure provided that “cases that must be prosecuted in accordance with the previous procedural system must conclude within no more than five years, counted from the date of publication of this Code (i.e., from May 31, 1999). Judges shall determine, either ex officio or at the request of one of the parties, whether this time period has passed and, where appropriate, shall declare the criminal action time-barred and close the case.” The petitioners point out that a new law was enacted on May 12, 2004, which modified this provision and, with respect to the duration of a case, provided that “Cases being conducted under the previous system shall continue to be prosecuted to completion.” They also report that on September 14, 2004, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional Law 2683, which extended indefinitely the time period for completion of criminal cases. Thus, a case would be time barred if the delay in rendering justice is due to negligence on the part of the courts or where there has been an unjustified omission. 5 They explain that the Court Case [“Caso de Corte”] was a special legal proceeding reserved for high ranking public officials. It was a commonly known fact that this proceeding never ended in a verdict of conviction. Consequently, it was routinely used to protect “political dealings.” According to the law, the special jurisdiction would take precedence over the ordinary system of justice; thus, in an attempt to avoid conviction, the defendants intentionally fingered Mrs. Andrade who, because of her office, would have to be prosecuted in this special proceeding. 4 4