Panama's President José Raúl Mulino announced that his government will seek international advice to promote an Anti-Mafia Law and reopen the debate on asset forfeiture, sparking a heated legal discussion.
Two renowned criminal lawyers, Nora Santa and Marco Austin, offered harsh, critical, and unvarnished assessments of the challenges and dangers both initiatives could face in Panama.
Nora Santa: "The anti-mafia law is a utopia" Lawyer Nora Santa started strong, comparing the fight against drugs and organized crime to the mythical punishment of Sisyphus—eternally pushing a boulder uphill—to emphasize that combating these structures is "a task without an end."
Santa rejected the idea that an Anti-Mafia Law would be the magic wand the country needs. "It hasn't worked in France, it hasn't worked in the United States. That's not law, that's not justice."
She also warned that a poorly drafted Asset Forfeiture Law could become a tool of state abuse: "One day you wake up without your properties, seized by the State, and then you try to get them back."
"We lack prosecutors, not new laws" Santa warned that the Public Ministry lacks technical staff to handle complex organized crime investigations: "We have new prosecutors, without experience and without proper training."
She concluded that Panama must focus on ensuring independence, meritocracy, and moral integrity in the selection of judges and prosecutors before passing laws that could be dangerous if managed without institutional capacity.
Marco Austin: "The key is due process and the State's capacity" Meanwhile, lawyer Marco Austin agreed that any Anti-Mafia Law must be built on solid guarantees: "Due process must be guaranteed, and the capacity to determine if the accused are truly part of the criminal conglomerate must be ensured."
"Asset forfeiture requires guarantees for the investigated and third parties" Austin recalled that historically, asset forfeiture involved special jurisdictions without sufficient protection for those affected: "There must be guarantees for the investigated and for third parties in good faith."
The lawyer warned that, in his opinion, the Public Ministry is not prepared to enforce a law of this type without external help. Panama would need international cooperation and internal reforms.
For Austin, Panama would need to cooperate with countries that are experts in the matter—the United States, France, Italy—and also amend the Penal Code and the Procedural Code for a law of this magnitude to function. "Otherwise, we copy the law, but we don't copy the capacity to apply it."
Mulino's proposals: between necessity and a legal storm President Mulino defended the creation of an Anti-Mafia Law that "sweeps away the legal scaffolding of garbage," in his words, that prevents confronting organized crime. He also labeled a previous asset forfeiture project as a "political absurdity" but insisted that Panama does need a professional, technical, and robust instrument.
A debate that is just heating up Despite the warnings from Nora Santa and Marco Austin, it is clear that the country faces a dilemma: the Executive branch is pushing new tools to fight organized crime, while lawyers point to risks of abuse, lack of institutional capacity, and threats to the rule of law.
The clash of visions promises to make these projects one of the most intense legal debates in recent years.
