Utility chief going to court
over his use of helicopter


The head of the country's telecom agency will be in court Monday to see if allegations against him will lead to a trial.

The preliminary hearing stems from a helicopter flight he and his wife took a year ago. The man is Pedro Pablo Quirós, executive president of the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad.

Quirós faces allegations of converting public property to his own use. The case presented to the judiciary last September is not clear cut because Quirós had business reasons to use the helicopter March 21. He visited the Cariblanco generating plant that was knocked out by the Jan. 8 Cinchona earthquake. He also visited an electrical coop's annual meeting.

The questionable visits are to the wedding of a legislative deputy's daughter in Zarcero and to the Puriscal home of the agency's general manager for a party.

Another telecom agency employee, identified by the last names of Barboza Zúñiga, also is involved in the case because he set up the flight.

The case has political overtones because opposition political party members brought it to the attention of the press.


New 911 surcharge set
at 1 percent of phone bill


The Telecom regulator has set a new rate to support the 911 emergency system. Presently the charge is a fixed 79.56 colons per line each month, but will become 1 percent of the total telephone bill.

Presently 79.56 colons is about 4 percent of the fixed-line basic rate of 1,850, and 1.5 percent of the minimum cell phone rate. The rate has been the same since the 911 system became operational in 1996, according to Carolina Mora, communications director for the Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones.

The increase is needed to make the 911 system financially self-sustaining, since its budget for 2010 is 5.75 billion colons. At the current rate, the approximately 2.6 million active phone lines produce 2.5 billion colons per year.
 

It's the law, not judges
that define decisions

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Guy C. Moats and others are rightfully frustrated with the apparently lax administration of the criminal code by Costa Rican judges. The practices Mr. Moats reflects upon are indeed different from what Americans would expect of the American legal system. And therein may lie the basis for a better understanding.

The American legal system gives judges great latitude in the administration of the law. Where the law is not specific, the decisions of judges, particularly at the appellate levels, do actually create new legal interpretations and set precedents. That is not the case in Costa Rica.

Whereas the U.S. has a system of "common law" which is heavily dependent upon judicial decisions, the Costa Rica system is one based upon the Napoleonic Code created by the national assembly. Here in Costa Rica, everything is strictly defined by the assembly when it writes or revises a law, and, compared to the U.S. system, judges have very little latitude. What the law says is what they must do.

So the resolution to his frustration lies not in castigating Costa Rican judges but in Mr. Moats' own understanding of the environment in which those judges administer the law. Mr. Moats might reasonably assert that accused criminals should be detained rather than being set free, but if the law says that a person in those circumstances must be freed, then the judge has no choice.

That's the Napoleonic system. It has nothing to do with the stiffness of the judges' spines. It has nothing to do with who the victims of the crime are. And it has nothing to do with how much razor wire the judges live behind. The law is the law, and they are charged to execute it.

The resolution of these problems, if one is truly necessary, lies with the national assembly. They make the laws that the judges administer.