Nicaragua Withdraws From the Central American Justice Court
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March 19, 2025 Hour: 10:40 am
This institution has stopped responding to the objectives of regional integration, Nicaraguan FM Jaentschke stated.
On Tuesday, Nicaragua denounced the Convention on the Statute of the Central American Court of Justice (CCJ) and announced its withdrawal from this regional institution.
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“Nicaragua conveys its sovereign and irrevocable decision to denounce the Convention on the Statute of the Central American Court of Justice, approved on December 10, 1992, and to withdraw from the Central American Court of Justice,” stated Nicaraguan Foreign Affairs Valdrack Jaentschke in a letter addressed to the CCJ President Salvadoran judge Cesar Salazar, the president of the Central American Court of Justice.
On December 10, 1992, during the 13th Summit of Central American Heads of State, the presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama approved the Convention on the Statute of the CCJ.
“In these 32 years since its creation, the Central American Court of Justice has only been composed of magistrates from Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, failing to fulfill the original purposes for which it was created as a regional judicial body,” Jaentschke noted.
Both the Statute and the Regulations of the CCJ “do not reflect the reality of its composition, as, against all logic, the Court is subject to the decisions of the Central American and Caribbean Judicial Council, which is not part of the Central American Integration System (SICA),” he added.
The Nicaraguan diplomat stated that the Central American Court of Justice is subject “to decisions made by countries that, despite having approved the Statute, have not materialized their intent to join the CCJ, or by countries that are not part of the Statute.”
“This situation is clearly incoherent and does not allow for the development of a Court that truly responds to regional integration, in which all SICA countries fully participate on equal terms, assuming their rights and obligations—an unacceptable and unsustainable circumstance for Nicaragua,” argued Foreign Minister Jaentschke.
In December 2024, Nicaragua submitted a request for an advisory opinion from the CCJ regarding SICA’s refusal to convene a session to elect the new secretary of that body.
Nicaragua made this request one week after sending a protest note to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and the Dominican Republic for opposing the appointment of former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada as the new secretary of SICA.
Currently, the SICA Secretariat is vacant, as in November 2023, Nicaraguan lawyer Werner Vargas resigned from the position for the 2022–2026 term, to which he had been appointed at Nicaragua’s proposal.
Created in Tegucigalpa in 1991, SICA is composed of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Dominican Republic as full members, while Mexico, the United States, and other countries hold the status of regional observers.
teleSUR/ JF
Sources: EFE – CCJ