Free Lula Demonstration. Source: Nueva Sociedad. All Rights Reserved.
Last April, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gave himself up to the police to start serving a 12-year prison sentence for passive corruption and money laundering. His was the latest in a series of detentions and prosecutions of political and economic Latin American leaders.
The trend began four years ago with the outbreak of the Brazilian Odebrecht bribery scandal. However, while taking action against corruption is indeed a necessity of an urgent nature, the increasingly politicized approach of the judicial procedures to this end is placing the entire region upon a slippery slope.
