City Bar Statement Expressing Concern over the Budgetary and Operational Dismantling of the Judiciary in Costa Rica

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In a new statement, the New York City Bar Association expressed concern about the recent announcement that Costa Rica’s Executive branch plans to cut more than US$59 million from the national judicial budget.

It also raised the alarm about continued vacancies on a key chamber of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court, where the government’s failure to appoint alternate justices has left the chamber unable to decide cases when sitting justices have recused themselves.

The City Bar observed that both issues are “part of a broader pattern of Executive pressure on judicial independence” in Costa Rica. The statement argues that both developments contravene international standards on judicial independence and Costa Rica’s own laws.

Groups representing Costa Rican judges and international experts including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers have raised concerns about the effect of these actions.

The City Bar urges Costa Rica’s other branches of government to protect the Judiciary’s budgetary autonomy and ensure it is able to perform its function without restrictions or undue pressure. It also notes a broader regional trend of threats to judicial independence.

“This statement is part of the City Bar’s broader concern regarding the weakening of judicial independence in Latin America, which has manifested through disciplinary reprisals, defamation campaigns, and threats against judges and, in Costa Rica’s case, through the financial strangulation of the body responsible for administering justice,” the statement says.

Summary

In June 2026, Costa Rica’s Executive branch, which took office on May 8, announced its intention to cut approximately US$59.4 million from the Judiciary’s budget.

Members of the judiciary and international observers immediately raised concerns about how these significant cuts could undermine the capacity of the country’s judiciary to effectively perform its essential functions.

The Costa Rican Association of the Judiciary (ACOJUD) warned in a statement that the cut “compromises every citizen’s right to receive a timely, impartial, and effective response” and will affect criminal investigations, victim assistance, public defense, and court operations nationwide.

At a tense July 20 session of the Judiciary’s Full Court devoted to the cut, a justice warned that “the process of shutting down the Judiciary has already begun.”

“Budgetary autonomy is an essential guarantee of the Judiciary’s independence and material functioning: using resource allocation as leverage over the courts jeopardizes their daily operations, the thousands of cases and disputes that depend on them, and the legal certainty a country needs to prosper economically,” the City Bar statement observes.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, and the Latin American Federation of Magistrates (FLAM) have also expressed concern about the cuts. In a statement published July 23, FLAM called on the Costa Rican government to ensure that any budgetary decision affecting the Judiciary be adopted through transparent, technical institutional dialogue.

Upholding International Standards and Obligations

International human rights law recognizes that judicial independence is not limited to the formal guarantee that judges decide without external interference in each specific case, but also requires structural institutional conditions that make the exercise of the judicial function possible.

“Both the budget cut and the failure to appoint alternate justices to the Constitutional Chamber are difficult to reconcile with these [international] standards,” the statement notes.

The New York City Bar Association urges Costa Rica’s Executive Branch and Legislative Assembly to take the following actions:

• Refrain from using budgetary allocation as a mechanism of pressure against the Judiciary, in keeping with the United Nations Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, applicable to the State of Costa Rica;
• Engage in transparent institutional dialogue with representatives of the judiciary to conduct a joint technical assessment of actual budgetary needs; and
• Establish or strengthen legal mechanisms guaranteeing a minimum, stable budgetary allocation to the Judiciary, subject to clear accountability mechanisms, so its financial autonomy does not depend on discretionary budgetary decisions by other branches of government.

It also calls on the other branches to approve a sufficient number of suitable alternative justices to ensure the full functioning of the Constitutional Chamber.

Finally, the City Bar calls on regional and international bodies, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, to monitor developments related to this issue in Costa Rica.

The City Bar’s Task Force on the Independence of Lawyers and Judges also signed on to the statement.

Read the full statement here.