Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica

The Supreme Court of Costa Rica (Corte Suprema de Justicia de Costa Rica) is the court of greater hierarchy of Law and Justice in Costa Rica.

Established on January 25, 1825, its president is Justice Zarela Villanueva Monge since May 13, 2013. All of the courts in the country are dependent on the Supreme Court of Justice. Its organizational structure is based on three factors: the matter of the subjects to solve, the territory where they take place and the quantity (amount of money that is involved in the subject).

The Supreme Court has 22 proprietary magistrates, 25 substitute magistrates in three first chambers and 12 substitute magistrates in the Constitutional Chamber. They are distributed of the following way: five in each one of the three Chambers of Annulment and seven in the Constitutional Chamber. They are nominated by the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica every eight years.

Within as little as two months from which they received the news of Independence, the Costa Ricans organized themselves politically and formed their own government. The representatives of different cities and towns formulated the Pacto de Concordia (Pacto Social Fundamental Interino de Costa Rica) on December 1, 1821, and is considered the first constitutional document of Costa Rica. In it they established the Joint Superior Government to exert the government functions and established the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica to have an authority on law and order in the country, and to lay down the laws over the Spanish and Amerindian population.

By means of Decree V of 24 September 1824 dictated by the Constituent National Assembly of that year, the state was organized by three powers: The Legislative Authority, the Executive Authority and the Judicial Authority. In the judicial branch, the power would reside in the Superior Court of Justice.

Nevertheless, it was not until 25 January 1825, with the Fundamental Law of the Free State of Costa Rica, that the judicial branch took constitutional shape. The Court had numerous initial problems with installation. At this time Costa Rica had a high number of independent lawyers, which made it difficult to completely fulfill the obligations to the Court of Justice stipulated by the Political Constitution. Integration to this new hierarchy of legal authority was difficult for towns in the country where a supreme court was virtually unheard of.

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