Corruption in the Peruvian Judiciary: Focusing on the Provisional judges

Abstract

Corruption in the judicial system undermines the rule of law and the ability to guarantee the rights of individuals. The fight for justice against corruption is not an easy task and therefore it is entrusted to the judges, the strengthening of justice with appropriate judicial proceedings

unfortunately, this situation is not happening in the Peruvian courts. This paper is an inquiry into whether provisional judges are more vulnerable to corrupt practices in the judicial system with the main objective of tackling the corruption within the Peruvian Judiciary. It specifically aimed at analyzing and explaining the influence of corruption over provisional judges in the Peruvian courts, identifying factors that may threaten impartiality in the decisions of the provisional judges and thus the independence of the justice system. Indeed, in order for the study to achieve the aforementioned objectives, this paper provided a theoretical background and conceptual definition to highlight the key concepts of judicial corruption, provisional judge as well as their derivatives. Besides, this paper assumed that bribery and undue political interference represent the most corrupt practices in the Judiciary. The paper used both qualitative and quantitative data in order to test the hypotheses by means of a questionnaire intended for judges, courts clerk, and lawyer who had interacted with the judicial system as well as interviews with provisional and permanent judges. Besides, after analyzing the collected data, the results have confirmed the hypothesis of this paper stating that provisional judges are more vulnerable to corruption. Thus, different internal and external factors that influence in this issue were identified in order to give appropriate responses and make recommendations and policy implications to tackle and reduce corruption in the judicial system. Finally, the paper ends with conclusions that briefly confronts the objectives of the study and its findings and provide new perspectives for future researchers.