According to Vallarino, the lack of cross-examinations for protected witnesses and prosecution experts leaves the defendants in a state of total defenselessness. For the jurist, the origin of this process is not strictly legal, but has a background of political persecution. He argues that no direct harm to the State has been proven, nor has the Brazilian construction company been criminally prosecuted locally. “This process has been a caricature of what a trial for high officials should be.” In this scenario, the technical defense expects the court to rule only on the evidence that could be rebutted during the hearing. The Odebrecht case represents an unprecedented challenge for the Panamanian justice system. However, in the opinion of Juan Carlos Araúz, former president of the National College of Lawyers (CNA), this challenge has not been successfully overcome due to the deep structural shortcomings of the current model. An obsolete system for a complex case The main contradiction lies in the fact that a sentence is being sought using a system that the administrators of the law themselves describe as obsolete. The legitimacy of the ruling is subject to the relevant evidence having been subjected to the contradictory scrutiny of the parties involved. “The contradictory is one of the pillars of the criminal process because it allows the evidence to be purified between the parties,” Araúz explained to Panamá América. Criticisms of “defenselessness” and political tint On the other hand, lawyer Arturo Vallarino was more forceful in stating that without the principle of contradiction there cannot be a ruling in accordance with the law. “The judicial system is being used for political purposes,” Vallarino pointed out. For Araúz, it is questionable to expect efficient results from a model designed for another era in a litigation of such magnitude. This is, without a doubt, one of the most complex cases of economic crime in Panama. Factors such as the high amounts of bribes, the number of those involved, the volume of documentation and the international dimension of the scandal generate tensions in efficiency and the management of evidentiary complexity. “The Odebrecht case shows that the mixed inquisitorial system has real difficulties in managing massive files with multiple defendants and complex financial analysis,” the jurist stated. The evidentiary debate: Key to the sentence Araúz argues that the solidity of Judge Baloisa Marquínez's sentence will not depend on the size of the file, but on the quality of the evidentiary debate.
