Representation
The establishment of a Provisional Electoral Council in Haiti was a potentially positive step toward elections in a context of sustained breakdown in institutions. However, changes in the membership of the Transitional Presidential Council lessened stability amidst the security crisis marked by severe gang violence and a devastating humanitarian situation.
Elsewhere, events affecting Representation were mixed. In Bolivia, the Legislature was able to come to a decision to set a date for overdue judicial elections, following a year-long standstill, enabling the partial replacement of judicial office-holders in December. In Canada, a Conservative party filibuster of an own motion related to a question of privilege halted the business of the House of Commons. In Argentina, parliamentary oversight of executive power has waned with the approval of the “Ley Bases”, that granted the president special powers to legislate by decree on certain matters, allowing him to bypass ordinary congressional procedures.
Rights
Improvements in Access to Justice have been encouraging, though the region experienced some setbacks as well. Brazil improved access to truth and transitional justice by restoring the Special Commission on Political Deaths and Disappearances, and recognizing previously unacknowledged groups as victims of the military dictatorship. A conviction in the murder of prominent councilwoman Marielle Franco, and an agreement with the mining company responsible for a catastrophic dam breach in 2015 that resulted in deaths, displacements and environmental damage to ensure reparations to victims, are further signals of progress. In Canada, a Supreme Court ruling that ordered compensation for longstanding underpayments of treaty-obligated annuities to Anishinaabe First Nations was a step towards accountability for violations of Indigenous rights. Rulings by domestic and international courts have also reaffirmed states’ responsibility to ensure the rights of Indigenous and ethnic minorities in Colombia and Ecuador.
In Peru, notable developments include a UN treaty body’s recommendation that the government make reparations for forced sterilizations that particularly impacted rural and Indigenous women in the 1990s. However, tensions have emerged in the country between the courts and parliament regarding how to address historic crimes, with a judge disapplying a statute of limitations recently approved by Congress due to its incompatibility with Peruvian and international law.
Another setback for Access to Justice took place in Mexico, where a ‘constitutional supremacy’ amendment banned any judicial review of constitutional changes, limiting people’s ability to defend their rights in courts.
Weakened Freedom of Expression has been a recent feature in some countries such as Argentina, where changes to legislation have imposed burdensome requirements for information access requests, and Mexico, where Congress passed constitutional amendments to abolish autonomous bodies, including a freedom of information watchdog. Freedom of Expression further deteriorated in Venezuela, where legislation to criminalize support of international sanctions was passed, and in Nicaragua, a country where vague legislation was enacted to criminalize critical speech in social media.
Finally, immigration policy has tightened in the Dominican Republic and in Chile, with a detrimental effect on Social Group Equality. However, the latter government has also announced that it is studying a plan to regularize undocumented immigrants.
Rule of Law
The weakening of accountability and checks on government was a notable trend in this period. In the United States, a Supreme Court ruling that former presidents enjoy broad immunity has diluted equality in legal accountability. In Mexico, despite experts’ warnings of its negative impact to judicial independence, the entry into force of a controversial reform to the judiciary that will introduce popular elections for all judgeships, has upended the justice system.
Personal Integrity and Security remains a challenge. In the United States, now-President Donald Trump was the target of two attempted assassinations. In Bolivia, former president Evo Morales was involved in a violent encounter in which his vehicle was attacked with gunfire. A longstanding, broader downturn in security has led some leaders to enact harsher measures to combat crime and gang violence, as has been the case recently in Panama, Chile and Trinidad and Tobago.
Participation
In the second half of the 2024 election super-cycle, three countries went to the polls: Venezuela, Uruguay and the United States. The average voter turnout was approximately 70.8 per cent (Uruguay has compulsory voting). In the United States and Uruguay, where legislative elections took place, the average female representation in the lower house slightly improved. Both the US and Uruguayan elections resulted in party turnover. The election in Venezuela was decried for its lack of transparency and credibility, with some domestic and international observers describing it as fraudulent. Some countries and stakeholders have recognized the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, as the elected president.
The repression of anti-Maduro protests, the closure of 1500 NGOs and the upcoming constitutional amendments that sanction ‘treason’ with the deprivation of nationality in Nicaragua, and the introduction of excessive and burdensome controls on NGOs in Paraguay are further examples of shrinking civic space in the region.
