Corruption

Corruption / Rafael Leon Rodriguez
Rafael Leon Rodriguez, Translator: Unstated

In another of the many meetings of recent days, the XI International
Criminal Sciences Meeting 2012, the General Controller of the Republic,
Gladys Bejarano Portela, urged, from ethics and professionalism, the
confrontation of economic crimes and illegalities. Again the obligatory
topic of corruption, focuses the interest of the participants on a legal
event.

The fact is that, during so many years the sweeping of these systemic
phenomena of Cuban socialism were swept under the rug, that now its
effusion covers all spheres of society. Now the General-President had
called attention again, during the last extended Cabinet meeting, ending
September, to work with rigor and discipline in order to eliminate the
disorganization that drives the waste, theft and negligence.

He referred to delinquency in the collections and payments between
enterprises and agencies and the increase in the string of defaults.
The fact is that there is no custom of respecting contracts or budgets
or schedules, because for many years they directed the country by
command, by means of government directives. And those rains brought
this mud.

The Attorney General of the Cuban Republic spoke in the Meeting about
the respectful vocation of the law and the legality of the revolution
during its historical evolution. This contrasts with the aphorism that
the revolution is the source of law because it was the revolutionary
power that upset even the country's judicial symbols.

They appropriated from the designated buildings those which impart
justice, like the building that today is occupied by the State Counsel
and the Central Party Committee: the current Palace of the Revolution.
This building, which they inherited from the past regime, was intended
for the Palace of Justice. The headquarters of the Pines Island
Tribunal in Nueva Gerona, for example, was converted to an ice cream
shop in the second half of the 1960's and so, through all the national
territory, the semiotics of what is legal suffered inherently with
respect to the law.

Enemies of the old law and obedient to the new, they headlined
themselves the powerful debut. But they have been the first violators
of their own laws. A recent example: article 57 of the Constitution of
the Cuban Republic expresses that correspondence is inviolable. It can
only be used, opened and examined in cases previewed by the law.
Matters irrelevant to the purpose of the examination will be kept
secret. The same principle will be observed with respect to cable,
telegraph and telephone communications.

On a television program last month, they made public a telephone
conversation of an opponent who was on hunger strike in her home in the
capital. The arbitrary detention of dissidents; the deportations to
their provinces of all who are where it does not suit the authorities;
the known acts of repudiation against opponents and dissidents,
organized by the same authorities that supposedly should prevent them,
finally, the stigma that we are all guilty before the law, until we
prove otherwise.

Also talked about at the event was the comprehensive analysis of the
country's Criminal Justice System that is being carried out, which will
generate, according to the Attorney General, important modifications to
the Penal code, the Law of Criminal Procedure and other legal norms. By
now, the Lady of Justice, with eyes blindfolded and scales in hand,
gives a suspicious wink to Cubans, observing everything, hiding behind
the dark glasses of totalitarian power.

October 16 2012

http://translatingcuba.com/corruption-rafael-leon-rodriguez/