Selective Justice in Global Scandal involving Mossack & Fonseca

Former Security Minister José Raúl Mulino chose the scandal linked to the creation of offshore companies at law firm Mossack & Fonseca as the subject of his latest open letter, highlighting how this is ultimate proof of the existence of selective justice in Panama.

“The presumption of innocence is back in fashion now”, he wrote, in reference to the investigation that the Public Ministry opened last week in the wake of the global scandal. According to Mr. Mulino, the reason for that is that the persons touched by the investigation are close friends of President Juan Carlos Varela.

“If last Sunday evening President Valela had demanded a quick and thorough investigation of the kind warranted by the gravity of these facts; and if such  investigation had been launched reasonably swiftly; then perhaps he would today have the moral credibility to demand that the country be respected” by its international partners. Mr. Mulino added that fact that the scandal has been dubbed Panama Papers is highly damaging to image of the nation.

“These papers are not Panama Papers: they are the papers of his ministerial counsel, his party’s president, his campaign donor and who know what else”, former minister Mulino wrote in his weekly letter. He went on to predict that nothing will come of the judicial investigation, referring to the selective nature of the justice system in Panama today, and to the preventive detention of a number of former government officials.

Mr. Mulino, who also acted as foreign minister during a period of the previous administration, went on to criticize the current government’s attempts to have Panama removed from the OECD’s gray list. “In foreign policy, I am afraid to say that propaganda serves little purpose. What is needed is hard, well-thought out decisions, aimed at avoiding having to eat one’s own words afterwards”. Nations act out of their own economic interests, and Panama is at a disadvantage in bilateral negotiations, he added.