Argentine legal scholar Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni said that Latin America is experiencing a rise in punitive policies, selective judicial persecution, and the weakening of democratic guarantees. He made the remarks during a visit to Paraguay, where he received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Asunción (UNA).
A former minister of Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice and former judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Zaffaroni said that so-called lawfare, or “legal cudgel,” turns justice systems into instruments for removing opponents from the political path. In his view, the method can be used by governments of different ideologies and poses a direct risk to democracy.
“The rule of law is a permanent struggle for equality before the law,” the legal scholar said. In his assessment, countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, and other members of Mercosur have experienced setbacks in building that ideal, although no perfect rule-of-law state has ever existed historically.
Zaffaroni also criticized the weakening of police forces in the region. In his view, low salaries and a lack of investment in technology can foster a symbiotic relationship between sectors of the police and criminal markets. “A state without police does not exist,” he said, warning that a deteriorated police force can contribute to the formation of a chaotic state.
Assessing the inter-American system, the former judge described the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as institutionally weak and said that the long interval between a complaint and a ruling reduces its ability to respond quickly to victims. The process first goes through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in Washington, before reaching the court. Zaffaroni compared the model with the European system, in which victims can appeal directly to the court.
He said the Inter-American Court’s annual budget is about US$5 million and recalled that part of its resources has depended on international cooperation. In his assessment, decisions are usually implemented more easily when they involve financial compensation, while measures intended to prevent further violations face greater resistance.
The legal scholar also questioned the excessive use of abbreviated proceedings in Latin American criminal justice systems. In his view, adversarial codes were adopted without the necessary infrastructure—including staff, courts, and hearing rooms—and this led many cases to be resolved through agreements rather than full trials. “We are exchanging pretrial detainees without convictions for convicted people without trials,” he summed up.
The criticism is connected to his experience in Paraguay. In 1995, Zaffaroni served as an international consultant to Paraguay’s Institute of Criminal Sciences and, years later, participated as a lawyer for the prosecution in the kidnapping case of María Edith Bordón de Debernardi. He left the case after being appointed to Argentina’s Supreme Court and later recused himself from the Arrom and Martí v. Paraguay case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
On artificial intelligence in the judiciary, Zaffaroni defended its use only as an auxiliary tool. The first duty of judges and lawyers, he said, is to maintain their own honesty and responsibility, without delegating legal reasoning or the drafting of judgments to technology.