By Latin America Reports | Created at 2026-08-11 18:47:10 | Updated at 2026-08-11 19:12:32
47 minutes ago
Mexico City, Mexico — Thousands of Costa Ricans marched last week in San José and other cities to defend the country’s judiciary, as tensions between the courts and the executive branch reach a new peak.
The protest on Thursday came after months of budget cuts, public attacks on judges and prosecutors, and a legislative standoff that has left the Constitutional Chamber without its full bench of substitute magistrates.
The public demonstrations were called by several social organizations, unions and public universities and converged on Democracy Square in the city’s historic center.
The protesters carried placards that read “Costa Rica wake up”, “Loving Costa Rica means respecting its democracy”, and “Chaves Out”, referring to former President Rodrigo Chaves who has kept a role in his successor Laura Fernández’s government even as he faces corruption allegations.
Congress has twice rejected the list of substitute magistrates proposed by the Constitutional Chamber, the body that rules on the constitutionality of government actions. On July 30, the Chamber ruled to extend the current substitutes’ terms until lawmakers act.
Days later, Yara Jiménez, president of Congress, filed a complaint against four of those magistrates.
President Fernández and former President Chaves, now her minister of Finance, have repeatedly accused the judiciary of corruption, inefficiency and blocking the government’s security agenda.
Chaves led a march against then-Attorney General Carlo Díaz in March 2025 and has floated the idea of shutting parts of the judiciary down.
Last Tuesday, Chaves dismissed the call to protest in defense of the courts, saying only people who benefit from what he called the system’s waste and “extraordinary pensions” would show up.
The government has also cut the judiciary’s budget, a decision it frames as a fiscal necessity and part of a broader reform. Judicial workers and civil society groups say the cuts are designed to weaken the branch.
Juan José Vargas León, a lawyer and human rights defender, took to the streets to protest on Thursday because he believes Costa Rica is going through a moment that demands “democratic responsibility”.
“There is a legitimate concern that, under the guise of reforming or correcting institutions, they may end up being weakened to make it easier to co-opt them,” Vargas León told Latin America Reports.
The lawyer also mentioned that this behavior of the executive branch matches a regional pattern of “attacks on institutions, questioning of judicial independence and a progressive concentration of power”. But he believes Costa Rica still has the chance to avoid going down that path.
The dispute has drawn international attention.
Last Friday, a coalition of rights organizations, coordinated through the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), warned that Costa Rica’s democratic institutions and judicial independence are eroding, and said the process tends to happen gradually rather than all at once.
A separate group, the Latin American Association of Human Rights Lawyers, Judges and Prosecutors, also backed the Judiciary this week and asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN’s special rapporteur on judicial independence to monitor the situation.
Costa Rica has long been considered one of Latin America’s most stable democracies. It ranked 28th out of 143 countries in the World Justice Project’s 2025 Rule of Law Index, second in the region after Uruguay.
The standoff comes as prosecutors also opened an investigation this week into President Fernández over the appointment of a Fiscal Control Police chief. No charges have been filed.
Featured image: Costa Rica Supreme Court
Image credit: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) via Wikimedia Commons
