Ecuador now exporting its kangaroo courts

Forget for a moment that Brazil is in its worst recession in a quarter century, Latin America’s exports are in the tank, and citizens across the region are marching against corruption.

No matter that in parts of the Western Hemisphere, human rights are worth less than the Venezuelan bolivar.

These days, whenever the Organization of American States convenes — as it did last week in Washington for its 45th general assembly — magical thinking takes over.

How else to explain the election of Patricio Pazmino Freire to the Inter-American Court for Human Rights? The 57-year-old magistrate also happens to preside over the Ecuadorean Constitutional Court, which ought to raise a red flag or two. There, he has earned a reputation for never disappointing President Rafael Correa. He faithfully ratified the 2013 Organic Communications Law, for instance, which paved the way for the government to sue or silence its critics and turned Ecuador into the worst country in the Americas to be a journalist after Cuba and Venezuela.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/06/23/commentary/world-commentary/ecuador-now-exporting-kangaroo-courts