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HONDURAS: MACCIH of the OAS
A New Era of Integrity and Honesty

Tegucigalpa, February 22. The Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) was presented today in the Honduran capital, detailing the plan of action designed to help the Central American country overcome corruption and the subsequent prevailing impunity.

According to conservative calculations of the MACCIH, at least $450 million or 10 billion lempiras disappear each year due to acts of corruption, resources that could be used to combat poverty in Honduras.

“We intend to contribute to the building of a culture that fights the lack of transparency and accountability, and to build capacity so that the Honduran justice system can be self-sufficient within a reasonable period of time. Our slogan is integrity and honesty,” said Francisco Guerrero, OAS Secretary for Strengthening Democracy, at the public presentation of the Mission.

The senior OAS official highlighted that the MACCIH “is the Honduran model of combating corruption and impunity, it is an instrument created according to the needs of the country. We designed it together with you and we will implement it together with you.”

The MACCIH is an unprecedented initiative designed to combat corruption and impunity in Honduras and facilitate a structural reform in the administration of justice in the country, where the people have demanded an end to corruption.

For his part, the spokesman of the Mission and representative of the OAS Secretary General, Juan Jiménez Mayor, explained that the MACCIH arrives “with all the strength of a hemisphere that wants to cooperate with a country determined to change. I invite everyone to take part in the change. We are going to fight against corruption together. I put the pen and the sword of our team at your disposal toward that goal.”

The former Peruvian Prime Minister vowed to immediately begin working to fulfill the task of the Mission, and announced that he has requested a reform of the Law of Jurisdictional Bodies to create special anti-corruption courts dedicated to a more effective fight against corruption. “That is the way it took place in many countries, and that is how we think it will happen in Honduras,” he said.

MACCIH brings together the lessons learned in fighting corruption in other countries both inside and outside the region. The key to the success of MACCIH is that the Honduran justice system become trustworthy and fair and recognized as such by the citizenry.

The Mission, which will have the power to select the cases to be analyzed, will have a team of international prosecutors, judges and experts that will select, advise, evaluate and certify a group of Honduran prosecutors and judges charged with investigating relevant cases and prosecuting networks of corruption.

Civil society, an active participant in the process of denouncing corruption, will have a privileged role in the Observatory that the MACCIH will establish to follow up on the progress of the Mission and the process of the transformation of justice.

The members of the MACCIH presented today are:

-Juan Jiménez Mayor, spokesman of the Mission, representative of the Secretary General, former Prime Minister and former Minister of Justice of Peru.
-Jan-Michael Simon, German expert, key figure in the creation of the CICIG in Guatemala and expert on criminal law, who will be the Main Advisor of the MACCIH.
-Juan Pablo Corlazzoli Garcia, Uruguyan expert with long experience in the United Nations and Coordinator of the Civil Society Observatory.
-Jacobo Alejandro Dominguez Gudini, Mexican expert in political party financing and electoral campaigns, who will coordinate the Poltical-Electoral Reform Division.

The rest of the team, as well as the international judges and prosecutors will be named in the coming weeks.

More information is available at the website of the MACCIH: http://www.oas.org/maccih/

Reference: E-019/16