The legislative bench of the governing Partido Pueblo Soberano filed a criminal complaint today against four judges of the Constitutional Chamber, carrying out an action announced last week after the court provisionally extended the terms of its substitute justices. President Laura Fernández accompanied the deputies to the Supreme Court building, along with much of her cabinet, and addressed a small crowd of supporters gathered outside.
The complaint alleges the offense of prevaricato, which in Costa Rican law covers a judicial or administrative official who issues rulings contrary to law or founded on false facts. It names Fernando Cruz Castro, Paul Rueda Leal, Ingrid Hess Herrera and Jorge Araya García, the four who formed the majority in the four-to-three ruling issued on July 30. No charges have been brought against any of them, and the filing does not by itself open a criminal case.
Legislative Assembly president Yara Jiménez, who announced the action on Friday, said the four had usurped powers belonging to Congress. Fernández, who had described the ruling as a coup d’état by part of the judiciary when it was issued, used narrower language outside the courthouse, calling the four justices usurpers of the separation of powers and saying they would not be allowed to impose themselves on 31 elected deputies. She asked the Court to process the filing immediately.
Rodrigo Chaves, who served as president until May and now holds the posts of minister of the presidency and minister of finance in Fernández’s cabinet, spoke after her and called the four justices filibusters, a term that in Costa Rica carries the specific historical charge of the foreign mercenaries our country fought in 1856. He said the extension amounted to one branch of the state seizing the powers of another and referred to United States visa revocations affecting two of the four.
The legal weight of the filing is contested. Constitutional lawyers consulted before it was submitted said the ruling does not, on its face, fit the definition of prevaricato, arguing that the justices acted within powers the Constitution grants them to address an exceptional situation created by the absence of appointments. One noted that the decision to file a querella, a private prosecution, rather than a denuncia to the Public Ministry, suggests the filing party expects prosecutors would not find a crime. Another said the complaint has no suspensive effect, meaning the Chamber’s ruling stays in force while the matter proceeds.
Eight employee and professional organizations from the Judicial Branch responded by calling a demonstration for Thursday at 4 p.m. at the Plaza de la Democracia in San José. The groups include the judicial employees’ association ANEJUD, the criminal investigators’ association ANIC, the judges’ association ACOJUD and the unions SITRAJUD, SINDIJUD and SINDEPU, along with two professional associations representing judicial staff. Jorge Cartín, general secretary of SITRAJUD, said the aim is to send a message in defense of institutional independence and the separation of powers. The Judicial Branch employs more than 13,800 people nationwide.
The dispute traces back to a stalemate over appointments rather than to any single ruling. The Legislative Assembly has failed across eleven rounds of voting to elect nine substitute justices for the Constitutional Chamber, with no candidate reaching the 38 votes required. Pueblo Soberano deputies have declined to support the candidates on the list sent by the Supreme Court and twice voted to return it, on June 10 and July 15, asking for a new slate. The Court has twice refused to produce one. The terms of the previous substitutes expired on December 16, 2025, leaving the Chamber unable to fill benches when sitting justices recuse themselves.
The ruling at the center of the fight came in an appeal brought by a private citizen who argued his cases had stalled for that reason. The Chamber ordered Jiménez to put the list of candidates before the full Assembly at the next available opportunity and, as a transitional measure, restored the expired substitutes until deputies elect replacements. Nogui Acosta, who heads the governing bench, has said his party will not comply with decisions issued by those substitutes, describing their appointments as invalid.
Opposition lawmakers have placed responsibility for the impasse with the government. Álvaro Ramírez, who leads the Partido Liberación Nacional bench, said Pueblo Soberano blocked the votes repeatedly and that the Chamber’s decision restored public access to constitutional justice. Justice Araya, one of the four named in the complaint, said the Executive should have waited for the full text of the ruling before characterizing it.
Today’s filing extends a pattern that has defined Fernández’s first three months in office. She has accused the judiciary of penetration by organized crime, a claim all 22 magistrates rejected in a signed statement and has publicly attacked the attorney general. What is new is the venue. Previous rounds played out in press conferences and recorded statements; this one places the Court in the position of deciding whether to process a criminal filing against four of its own, at a moment when the branch is also being asked to defend itself in the street.
