In mid-March, Peru’s top court ordered the release from jail of Alberto Fujimori, the country’s former authoritarian president. Fujimori had served about half of his 25-year sentence for human rights abuses committed during his dictatorship in the 1990s.
This was the second time the former president has been granted release. Peru’s leaders had pardoned him in 2017, but a different court overturned that pardon after popular protests. Will similar protests force Fujimori back to jail again?
This is how the two pardons unfolded
Five years ago, Fujimori was pardoned as part of political negotiations between President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, also known as PPK, and Fujimori’s son, Congressman Kenji Fujimori. PPK faced impeachment. In exchange for voting against impeachment, Kenji negotiated his father’s release from prison. For this move, Kenji was branded a traitor by his sister, Keiko Fujimori, leader of Peru’s Fuerza Popular Party (Popular Force Party), who was leading the impeachment proceedings against PPK.
This time, on Feb. 22, media outlets in Peru began reporting that the Constitutional Tribunal had received a habeas corpus request submitted by Alberto Fujimori’s lawyer César Nakazaki. The request sought to overturn the decision from Peru’s Supreme Court of Justice on Oct. 3, 2018, which had annulled the pardon that PPK issued on medical grounds. Peru has two top courts, one in charge of interpreting the constitution, called the Constitutional Tribunal, and one about process, called the Supreme Court of Justice.
The Constitutional Tribunal on March 17 voted 4 to 3 to release Fujimori from jail, in a decision based on humanitarian grounds related to his age and failing health conditions.
Peru’s political landscape has changed
Fujimori’s second release comes as Peru’s legal and political context is changing — and not in ways that favor his continued freedom.
In the courts, thousands of women are demanding justice for crimes they are alleging against Fujimori and his former health ministers, Eduardo Yong Motta, Marino Costa Bauer and Alejandro Aguinaga. Under these officials, from 1996 to 2000, Peru’s Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program coercively sterilized more than 2,000 women, mostly of Indigenous descent. Transitory Supra-Provincial Criminal Court Judge Littman Ramírez Delgado, who is hearing evidence on charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the right to life, has allocated eight months for investigations, deeming it a “complex case.” Previously, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had intervened on behalf of a victim of coercive sterilization, corroborating the allegations and attempting to reach a settlement with the Peruvian government.
With these further confirmations of the Fujimori administration’s abuses of power, it’s hard to imagine that Peruvians look kindly on Fujimori’s second release.
The political landscape has also changed, with Peruvians successfully protesting in a number of events — and likely learning that coordinated advocacy movements can make a difference, as research has confirmed. Immediately after the first pardon in December 2017, thousands of Peruvians protested furiously in Lima’s streets and nationwide, joined by some political leaders. The public outrage led PPK to resign on March 21, 2018. The Supreme Court annulled the pardon in October 2018, putting Fujimori back in jail.
Then in late 2020, during a series of impeachments that resulted in Peru having three presidents within a week, young protesters who considered the first impeachment against Martín Vizcarra illegitimate pushed out his replacement. More recently, protesters helped quash Keiko Fujimori’s presidential aspirations in 2021. Opponents ran a fierce opposition social media campaign with trending hashtags #KeikoNOVA (KeikoWillNotGo) and #FujimoriNuncaMas (FujimoriNeverAgain) — and successfully elected Pedro Castillo as president instead.
Why Peru’s leader was elected by a less than 1 percent margin
Could protests force Fujimori back to jail?
My research has found that after decades of corruption and authoritarian governance, old political circles of power remain influential in Peruvian politics. That can be seen in the votes on reinstating Fujimori’s pardon. The votes were initially tied 3 to 3. When there’s a tie, the tribunal’s president can cast the deciding vote. Tribunal President Augusto Ferrero sided with releasing the former president.
Here’s the background. The Peruvian Congress elects magistrates to the Constitutional Tribunal. In 2017, Ferrero met with members of Fuerza Popular, including party leader Keiko Fujimori — after which he was elected to the tribunal. Although no direct ties have been established, media outlets are noting that Ferrero’s vote decided the former president’s fate and are asking whether he’s linked with Fujimori’s political cronies.
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has criticized the tribunal’s decision, calling it an “institutional crisis” and calling for intervention by “international legal organs for the effective exercise of justice.”
There may be more that he can do. Legal experts argue that Castillo can move to revoke the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision, as cases involving those convicted of crimes against humanity are exempt from pardon. The other option would be for Castillo to actively involve the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Studies also find that in exceptional circumstances, the Constitutional Tribunal may nullify its own decisions. Absent pressure and action from the executive, protests in Lima, major cities in Peru and around the world against Fujimori’s release are likely to grow — and force change.
Even if Fujimori does return to jail, his track record and continued connection to circles of power suggest that we may be discussing another release in the next few years.
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Ñusta Carranza Ko (@KoNusta) is an assistant professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore.