Last Week

It was nearly nine when we arrived and the heat, as always, filled the air like an oppressive tyrant. There is a small ante-room for the clerk, who still writes on an antiquated typewriter; a small court room, where there rests the judges bench, the stenographer’s bench, and the witnesses bench; towards the back of the building, the public defenders office lies, where slated windows, which are always open during mediation, provide little privacy; and the quaintest of entrances, oddly enough located at what seems to be the back of the building façade, is lined with rocking chairs indicative of the speed at which the law in Nicaragua moves. This is the courthouse.

Last week, John, Stephanie and I visited the local courthouse where we spoke with both the Municipal judge and the public defender. We spent the majority of the early morning listening to the Judge speak about her role and that of the types of cases she deals with and the later part of the afternoon watching the public defender mediate.

The judge, who is the only judge within the municipality of Matiguas, which is a very large area, presides over issues that would arise in an American small claims courts. She hears disputes regarding domestic violence, border disputes, minor and sometimes severe instances of threats of physical violence, and issues dealing with child support. In doing so, she informed us that since the municipality is so large she has 24 mediators that work under her, whom she herself has trained and who’s expenses she pays out of her pocket. There are four urban mediators and 20 others spread throughout the rural communities, however the judge herself travels roughly once a week to deal with the rural conflicts herself. The 24 mediators, we are told, are respected members of the community, so that when they address a conflict, their decisions carry just as much weight and thereby have a binding effect. The mediators play a large part however; as the costs of travel are very high and often the injured party cannot afford to bring their case before the courthouse. In such instances, the mediators travel out to the farms and address the conflict on the injured parties premises. However, the mediators don’t deal with issues too serious, as those require a higher court.

In the latter part of the morning, I was able to sit in a watch the public defender mediate a conflict between two women. Before the two women arrived, a report had been filed with the alleged facts and upon the beginning of the mediation process, the public defender went over the facts again in order to establish a background. It turned out the woman 1 was formerly married to man 1, with whom they share a child. At one time or another, woman 1 and man 1 separated and woman 1 was given 40 manzanas of land (the Nicaraguan measure of land, similar to an acre). Later, man 1 married woman 2 and had a child with her as well. Ensuing, man 1 took back some of the land he gave to woman 1 for him and woman 2 to live on with their new child. Later, it turns out that woman 1 saw woman 2 early one morning waiting for the bus and physically attacked her and threatened to kill woman 2 with a machete. Following the attack, woman 2 filed a report and thus came to the courthouse to resolve the issue.

The mediation process was filled with shouting and yelling, and many times the public defender had to ask one of the parties to leave so that the other could address her side of the story. At one point, the husband came in and told his side of the story as well. Finally, the mediator gave the ultimatum to the fighting women that they could either solve the matter right there or involve the judge, which would result in more severe resolutions. In the end, the two women agreed to stay away from each other and to not provoke the other. One large issue that seems to present itself however, is whether the signed agreement is all that influential; after all, what is to stop woman 1 from reigniting the issue once far away from the court house. This may be a large limit in the judicial process, but it seems that morally once this sort of document is signed, the signing parties remain true to their word.

Even more interesting, the judge has invited the three of us with her when she travels to the small fincas (farms) to mediate the issues so that we can see her in action and watch the people’s reactions. Later on this week we are going to visit the local jail, where we learned today that until the most recent constitutional draft, alleged perpetrators we jailed until proven innocent; only most recently has Nicaragua adopted an adversarial system where an alleged injurer is only jailed after proven guilty. Until later.