The judge won. He said his decisions were not open to question. The Sala IV of Costa Rica agreed. A judge can make whatever decision he or she wants in a case, and it is not up for discussion. The office of judicial inspections were told not to question the decisions — even in cases where there may be obvious bribery or fraud.
The Sala IV said that a judge's decision could be overturned by a superior court, but could not be voided by anyone besides him or herself. The decision would seem to reject any oversight of judicial decisions.
The Sala IV ordered the judicial inspection department of the court to reinstate a judge who made a suspicious decision and pay all his back wages because the office suspended him wrongly. The inspectors questioned one of his decisions and suspended the judge because investigators felt there was some monkey business going on concerning a civil collection case.
Costa Rican law is based on Roman, not Anglo law. Roman law is based on rules, and Anglican law is based on jurisprudence. Rules are written down in laws, and their interpretations are left up to judges. Their rendition is their business, no one else's, according to the highest court in the country.
Here is the story:
In a case where an asset was given as a guarantee, the creditor asked for the asset to be put into the hands of a court-appointed trustee. As is a creditor's right in Costa Rica, until a collection case was settled. A judge, not the main player here, said no to the request.
The creditor appealed the judge's decision to a higher court. Superior courts are usually made up of three judges in Costa Rica, and they are referred to as a tribunal court. The appeal process took more than a year to resolve, but the creditor won. The higher court ordered the lower court in very stern language to put the court-appointed trustee in possession of the asset to protect the creditor.
Now, here is where things get interesting. The creditor contacted the trustee, and they went to the court on a Friday to get the pickup order for the asset. They got the run around from the court clerks, but the clerks finally prepared the order for the judge to sign. As it turned out, the same judge who said no the first time and whose decision was overturned by the superior court was in charge that day.
Amazingly, the judge had some emergency come up and had to leave the court building. None of his assistants told the creditor or the trustee that the judge had left until the court was going to close. The creditor and the trustee had waited all day for the order. A clerk finally told them they had to come back Monday and the judge would sign the document.
Was the judge there on Monday? No. It just so happens he went on vacation and a substitute judge was in his place. After a bit of pushing, they finally convinced one of the assistants to let them speak with the replacement judge. The creditor and the trustee explained the whole case to the man, so he would sign what was already prepared Friday, the pickup order for the asset. After the judge listened to the story with little interest, they were asked to wait outside.
Lo and behold, the debtors were sitting in the chairs outside the judge's office waiting to see what was going to happen too.
Expats with any time in Costa Rican can probably guess what happened. The replacement judge said he would not sign the order as it was written. He called in the assistant — the same one who prepared the order on Friday — and told the assistant to redo the order to say exactly opposite what the creditor and the trustee sought.
