The must-read column “Que se dice” (What is being said) reports today that a lack of understanding and knowledge about the newly instituted Penal Code has been brought to the forefront in last week’s headlines. The columnist says that one month is not enough time to give a proper evaluation as to the successful application or not of the new Penal Code. As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Jorge Subero Isa has said, it is evident that one of the principal problems, that the promoters of the new code will have to face, is the population’s overall ignorance of the breadth, the procedures and the legal environment that the new code encompasses. This lack of understanding includes, of course, public officials, obliged by their jobs to know a judicial tool but which unfortunately they have had little time to become familiarized with.
The bitter confrontation that was seen last week between the head of the Customs and the District Attorney for the National District over the Plaza Lama case is a sufficiently clear example of what is happening. It showed that a lack of knowledge of the new code could provoke open discord among public officials.