‘A door of hope has opened.’ A fresh start for justice in Honduras?

Belkis Galindo raced outside to dance and sing alongside hundreds in the Honduran capital on Feb. 15, marking the arrest of former President Juan Orlando Hernández.

“We were all waiting for it,” says Ms. Galindo, who works in marketing. Mr. Hernández, who served eight years as president and oversaw a period of increased poverty, violence, and international migration, was taken into custody by Honduran police the day after the United States requested his extradition for drug trafficking and weapons charges.

We’re “just waiting for the day when they actually send him [to the U.S.]. There will be more justice there than here,” says Ms. Galindo.

Despite the celebrations, this moment is bittersweet. Extradition is a tool that’s been used in the region by the U.S. since the 1970s to take often “untouchable” politicians and drug traffickers and try them in a system that’s less susceptible to the local threats, bribes, and political maneuvering back home. But with Mr. Hernández’s extradition on the table, many in Honduras are imagining a different possibility: justice for high-profile criminals within Honduran borders.

“Honduras is worthy of a better fate [than extradition],” says Ana Pineda, professor of law at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) and former secretary of justice and human rights. “Honduras should have robust internal institutions, and the heads of these institutions should be selected for ... professional merits so that when they have the opportunity to investigate anyone – regardless of their position – they do so without hesitation.”

There are glimmers of hope, she says, that a shift toward a more independent justice system could be on the horizon. For the first time in 12 years, a new party is in power, pledging to deliver justice for corrupt officials, bring back an international anti-corruption committee, and revive Honduras’ weakened democracy through a constituent assembly. And already citizens are making clear that they are prepared to pressure the government to keep judicial appointments aboveboard and in clear view of the population.

“No foreign justice system is going to indict all of our corrupt leaders,” says Rafael Jerez, a Honduran political analyst and research fellow at the Institute for Transnational Law at the University of Texas at Austin.

“It’s not that difficult if there is political will,” adds Ms. Pineda. “And this government has shown that it wants to do things differently.”

Shifting views of extradition

Extradition to the U.S. from Latin America was long justified by weak justice systems that couldn’t handle trials of high-profile politicians or kingpins, says Luz Estella Nagle, a law professor focused on transborder crime at Stetson University in Florida. Although there has been significant U.S. government investment in the region’s justice systems, corruption is still its Achilles’ heel. 

In 2016 and 2017 alone, the U.S. sent more than $104.56 million to Honduras in aid earmarked for justice-system and police reform, according to the latest available data from the Central America Monitor by the Washington Office on Latin America.

“Some feel that [legal] aid has been wasted. Because if we’ve invested so much money and time, ... why has so little changed?” says Ms. Nagle.

But one thing that has changed is the way alleged criminals perceive extradition. It was once feared, based on the belief that sentences were harsher in the United States. But today, the threat of facing justice in the U.S. doesn’t loom so large in the mind of accused criminals, says Pablo Rueda-Saiz, an associate professor of law at the University of Miami who grew up in Colombia when Pablo Escobar was waging war against the government and civilians in protest of his extradition.

In stark contrast to the weekly bombings and violence that shut down schools and supermarkets, and took down airplanes, during Mr. Escobar’s fight against extradition, accused criminals today may seek it out. “They do get sentences, but of course reduced sentences due to plea bargaining,” says Mr. Rueda-Saiz. Oftentimes they don’t lose their assets, even if ill-gotten, and can remain in the U.S. after serving their sentence, he adds. “So, many actually request to be extradited to the U.S. That’s a 180-degree turn since Pablo Escobar.”

But a central complaint from the region is that by taking someone to face justice in the U.S., they aren’t held accountable back home.

Local victims and citizens “lose out by not getting to participate in the process of a trial,” says Ms. Nagle, who notes that these are not victimless offenses. “And who are the victims? The most vulnerable ... and they should have a chance to face” the accused, Ms. Nagle says.

A weakening justice system

Delio Colindres, a fruit vendor, was passing near the former president’s house on Feb.15, when he noticed a heavy police presence. It wasn’t long before Mr. Hernández was brought out in handcuffs.

The past several years have been difficult in Honduras economically, Mr. Colindres says. He felt the pain of gas and electricity price hikes. About 48% of Hondurans lived on less than $5.50 a day in 2019, and the poverty rate reached as high as 51.5% during Mr. Hernandez’s time in office, according to the World Bank. Mr. Colindres may not have had evidence, but he says he’s long thought Mr. Hernández was up to no good. The U.S. sentenced the former president’s brother, Tony Hernández, in 2021 for drug trafficking, which bolstered this perception. To that end, Mr. Colindres supports Mr. Hernández’s extradition: “In Honduras, with money, anyone goes free.”

In 2021, Honduras ranked in the bottom 13% on the corruption perception index, according to a ranking of 180 countries by Transparency International. Since 2008, the year before a historic coup, the country has fallen more than 30 spots down the list.

Honduras’ 2009 coup exposed the weaknesses of its judicial system and opened the door for further politicization. Soon after, Mr. Hernández, a member of the National Party, which ruled post-coup Honduras until its defeat at the polls last November, became president of the Congress.

The justice system underwent a number of changes that consolidated the power of the conservative ruling party, from stacking the Supreme Court with judges sympathetic to Mr. Hernández’s party to allowing him to run for reelection, despite a constitutional ban. In 2020, Mr. Hernández allowed the mandate to expire on an international anti-corruption commission backed by the Organization of American States, known as the MACCIH, which investigated high-profile corruption cases.

The justice system was so co-opted by the National Party that any potential criminal case implicating party members or their interests stopped before it could even begin, says Ms. Pineda, who served as secretary of justice and human rights under Mr. Hernández’s predecessor, who was also a member of the National Party. 

Another factor was U.S. support for Mr. Hernández during his time in office. As recently as 2020, the acting secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security referred to Mr. Hernandez’s government as “a valued and proven partner” in Central America. The seemingly abrupt shift from support for the former president to a request for his extradition raises questions about how much the U.S. knew – and perhaps overlooked – about his alleged criminal activities. Nevertheless, backing from the U.S. “facilitated his [grasp] on power,” says Mr. Jerez, from the University of Texas.

The former president had supporters at home too. “He did good things. He helped me,” says Karen Jimenez, a street vendor, crediting his party with keeping a roof over her head. She thinks the accusations against him are false and that if he is to face any trial, it should be at home.

“It doesn’t seem right to me that [the U.S. will] judge him there when he isn’t from there. He’s from here,” she says.

A fresh start?

President Xiomara Castro, who took office Jan. 27, campaigned on an anti-corruption ticket, promising to restore the independence of Honduras’ justice system. Congress formed a commission last month to investigate why the country failed to bring charges against Mr. Hernández. The idea is that if the U.S. is bringing these charges, which cite alleged crimes as far back as 2004, then the Honduran justice system must have known about them, too.

Ms. Castro’s government recently requested the assistance of the United Nations to create an international commission to investigate corruption, as well. Next year, legislators will name new members of the Supreme Court and an Attorney General, key appointments that will set the tone for the justice system for the next five years.

“If these processes are transparent, ... it would be very positive for our country,” says Luis Javier Santos, director of the Specialized Prosecutorial Unit against Corrupt Networks (UFERCO), housed within the public prosecutor’s office. “There would even exist the environment for the people who are now being extradited to be tried in our country – not the same ones, but the next corrupt people who emerge of this same level,” he says, hopefully.

Since the beginning of Mr. Hernández’s second four-year term, civil society has become increasingly vocal against corruption and closed-door deals within the government. Ms. Castro’s administration will likely feel that growing pressure.

After 12 years of leadership that gutted social services and inspired hundreds of thousands to flee Honduras, civil society and average citizens want more from their political system. 

“With this new government a door of hope has opened,” says Mr. Santos. “And we hope that it doesn’t close.”

Editor's note: The time when Mr. Hernández became president of Honduras' Congress has been corrected.