Nicaragua Removes Hundreds of Lawyers from Supreme Court Registry Without Notice

Nicaragua's government has stripped the licenses of hundreds of lawyers from the Supreme Court of Justice registry in recent days, The Independent reported. Lawyers discovered the removals without any official notification or explanation. A United Nations expert described the action on Friday as a purge of the legal profession aimed at eroding the country’s final shreds of democratic checks and balances.

Reed Brody, an American human rights lawyer and member of a U.N. panel of experts on the Central American country, said he knew of at least 20 lawyers affected and estimated the total at hundreds if not thousands. Juan Diego Barberena, a lawyer and human rights defender exiled in Costa Rica since 2022, was among those affected.

On Thursday he found his name and license number wiped from the government database. Barberena said he knew of at least 25 more colleagues in the same situation and described the move as a means of exercising totalitarian control over the legal profession.

The government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has carried out an all-out crackdown on dissent since mass social protests in 2018 that the government violently repressed.

Since then it has imprisoned adversaries, religious leaders, journalists and others, forcing thousands to flee the country. It has also stripped hundreds of their Nicaraguan citizenship and possessions and shut down more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious groups but also local rotary clubs and scouting organizations.

Brody said the action follows a pattern of closing NGOs, universities, independent media and churches.