Sanctions against authorities from other countries are a tradition of US foreign policy, which also includes judges.
Last Friday (18), the latest group of targets were announced by this measure: Minister Alexandre de Moraes, “his allies” in the Supreme Court (STF) and his family members had their visas revoked and thus prevented from entering the United States.
In an X-publication, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned that the measure was motivated by what he called “Witch Hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, defendant in the STF in a lawsuit for alleged coup attempt on Friday of a Federal Police Operation (PF), authorized by Moraes.
In June, Rubio had already announced sanctions against four Judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague, the Netherlands, for the investigation against Israel about the War in the Gaza Strip, for which a arrest warrant was issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on accusations of war crimes and humanity.
The Judges of Sanctions were Solomy Balungi Bossa, from Uganda; Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, from Peru; Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou, from Benin; and Beti Hohler from Slovenia.
In a statement released at the time, the State Department claimed that these “individuals participated in ICC efforts to investigate, arrest, stop or process citizens from US or Israel, without the consent of the latter.” United States and Israel do not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court of Hague.
“The US will take all the measures they deem necessary to protect their sovereignty, Israel’s and that of any other US ally from ICC illegitimate actions,” Rubio said.
The sanctions imposed by the US government have established a blockade of all the goods of those in the United States or in possession or control of Americans; blockade of companies or other organizations that have a 50% or more participation of the targets of the measure; and prohibition of people in the United States or in transit in the US territory to make financial and commercial transactions with those involved.
In February, Trump management had already sought with sanctions TPI prosecutor Karim Khan. He had goods in the United States blocked and was prevented from entering the country. Then he graduated from office due to accusations of “sexual misconduct.”
However, American sanctions against judges from other countries are not an exclusivity of republican governments.
In September last year, the management of Democrat Joe Biden applied sanctions against 16 public officials from Venezuela, including the president of the Supreme Court (TSJ), Caryslia Rodríguez, plus the judges Fanny Beatriz Márquez, Inocenio Figueroa, Malachias Gil Rodríguez and Juan Carlos Hidalgo, as well as prosecutor Luis Ernesto Duéñez, who issued the request, who issued the request issued the request A prison against the presidential candidate of the opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia, which the United States considered the July election winner, fraudulent by dictator Nicolás Maduro to continue in power.
“Instead of respecting the will of the Venezuelan people expressed at the polls, Maduro and his representatives falsely proclaimed their victory as they repressed and intimidated the democratic opposition in an illegitimate attempt to stay in power,” said then -Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a statement in which he claimed that the targets “prevented the publication of results and the publication of results. Precise electoral and ratified the fraud that benefited Maduro.
In April 2023, the US Treasury Department had imposed sanctions against three Nicaragua judges, Venezuela’s allied dictatorship.
Magistrates of the District Court of Appeals, the Second District Court of First Instance and the First Court of Criminal Appeals of Managua, capital Nicaraguan, were aimed because they confirmed decisions of dictator Daniel Ortega who revoked the citizenship of more than 300 Nicaraguan citizens.
In the same month, Biden management included four Georgia judges and former Mrs. on the US Sanction list. Blinken claimed in a statement that judges committed acts of “significant corruption” and cited democratic deterioration in the European country.
Although these sanctions generated headlines around the world, they alone have not generated political changes: Maduro and Ortega follow in power and their dictatorships remain among the most cruel on the planet, and Georgia, under Russian influence, remains in the course of autocracy.
