The PTJ and the PNP have offices of professional responsibility that act as internal affairs organs to hold officers accountable for their actions. Both have staffs of independent investigators as well as administrative authority to open internal investigations. In both organizations, a defined legal process is followed in which, upon completion of the process, the director of the PTJ or the PNP review panel, as appropriate, has the final authority to determine the disposition of each case.

The PNP deputy director and the secretary general addressed human rights problems that arose in the police force. The offices of professional responsibility were well known in the community, and the rate of complaints remained generally constant in the PTJ office. As of late September, the Ombudsman received 58 complaints against the police for abuse of authority (see Section 4). At year's end, the PNP Office of Professional Responsibility received 543 complaints (including 132 cases of physical mistreatment), an average of 10 complaints per week, an increase from 9 per week in 2003. Through mid-August, the office penalized 60 officers. Penalties included reduction in rank, and in severe cases, criminal prosecution. There were 16 dismissals as of mid-August.

The PTJ received complaints from the public, and officers could make anonymous complaints of corruption and other problems. By early September, the PTJ Office of Professional Responsibility had conducted 136 investigations, which resulted in the dismissal of 17 agents. The majority of open cases were for mishandling official property such as misplacing guns or radios (53), misconduct or improper behavior (25), corruption (15), abuse of authority (15), and negligence (10).

Corruption among police officers remained a problem. In some cases, PNP and PTJ directors enforced other disciplinary measures against officers with proven involvement in illicit activities; however, both organizations only reacted to egregious abuses, due to a lack of staff, independence, and institutional priority. In May, PNP narcotics officers arrested the entire PNP uniformed shift at the substation in San Carlos, including the police captain, for off-loading boats from Colombia that carried illegal narcotics.

The Constitution provides for judicial review of the legality of detention and mandates the immediate release of any person detained or arrested illegally. The Constitution prohibits police from detaining suspects for more than 24 hours without bringing them before a judge. Under the law, the preliminary investigation phase may last from 8 days to 2 months and the follow-on investigation phase another 2 to 4 months, depending on the number of suspects. The courts frequently granted extensions of time limits, leaving those accused in detention for long periods without having been charged formally. The law permits these extensions; however, many legal authorities (including court officials) criticized judges for excessive use of this measure. While the law provides for bail, in practice judges often declined to grant bail.

Extended pretrial detention continued to be one of the most serious human rights problems, due in part to the elaborate notification phase in criminal cases. According to government statistics, by December, 6,701 prisoners, or about 58 percent of the prison population, were pretrial detainees. The average period of pretrial custody was 24 months, and pretrial detention in excess of the maximum sentence for the alleged crime was common.

Legal alternatives to prison existed; however, they were not implemented widely. Options such as house arrest were used in some cases involving the elderly or minors but required that the defendants have access to, and understanding of, their legal options. There was a limited program of work or study in lieu of some sentences. As of mid-August, the Government had granted 35 work permits and 14 school permits to prisoners.

The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary was susceptible to corruption and outside influence, including manipulation by other branches of government.

The President appoints 9 Supreme Court magistrates to 10-year terms, subject to National Assembly ratification. The Supreme Court magistrates appoint appellate (Superior Tribunal) judges, who, in turn, appoint circuit and municipal court judges in their respective jurisdictions. Judicial appointments are supposed to be made under a merit-based system, but the top-down appointment system lent itself to political influence and undue interference by higher-level judges in lower-level cases in which they often had no jurisdiction.

At the local level, mayors appoint administrative judges, or "corregidores," who exercise jurisdiction over minor civil cases and who hold wide powers to arrest and to impose fines or jail sentences of up to 1 year. This system continued to have serious shortcomings outside of Panama City: Defendants lacked adequate procedural safeguards; administrative judges outside of Panama City usually were not attorneys; many had not completed secondary education; and some were corrupt. In practice, appeal procedures were nonexistent. As of October, the number of local sentences imposed by corregidores in Panama City alone was 1,152. Affluent defendants still tended to pay fines while poorer defendants went to jail, which contributed to prison overcrowding (see Section 1.c.).

The 1998 judicial reform program started by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Government finished at year's end.

The Constitution provides that persons charged with crimes have the right to counsel, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, to refrain from incriminating themselves or close relatives, and to be tried only once for a given offense. If not under pretrial detention, the accused may be present with counsel during the investigative phase of the proceeding. Judges may order the presence of pretrial detainees for the rendering or amplification of statements, or for confronting witnesses. Trials were conducted on the basis of evidence presented by the public prosecutor. Under limited circumstances, the law permits trials without the accused being present. The Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code provide for trial by jury at the defendant's election, but only in cases where at least one of the charges is murder.

The Constitution obliges the Government to provide public defenders for the indigent. However, many public defenders were appointed late in the investigation, after the prosecutor already had evaluated the bulk of the evidence and decided either to recommend trial or to dismiss the charges. Public defenders' caseloads remained extremely high, averaging some 550 cases per attorney per year. Thirteen additional public defenders have been hired since 1992; there were 49 nationwide, with a similar number of assistants. In 2003, the Government appointed seven prosecutors to comply with a new law regarding delinquent minors. A heavy workload continued to undermine the quality of representation, with many prisoners meeting their public defender for the first time on the day of trial. The inadequate number of public defenders also continued to cause a backlog in trial dates, which contributed to the problem of prison overcrowding.

There were no reports of political prisoners.

The Constitution provides for the inviolability of the home, private papers, and telephonic communications, and the Government generally respected these rights in practice; however, there were complaints that in some cases, law enforcement authorities failed to follow legal requirements and conducted unauthorized searches.

In an effort to prevent unauthorized searches, the Public Ministry placed a representative, whose job was to approve searches, in each of the PTJ's divisions.

In November, a constitutional reform signed by President Torrijos and ratified by the National Assembly went into effect, permitting wiretapping with a court order issued by a competent court that identifies a specific objective.

The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the Government sometimes did not respect these rights in practice, and at times the media were subject to political and economic pressure. The Government and public figures made frequent use of libel and "disrespect for authority" laws to confront and attempt to intimidate journalists who allegedly were "irresponsible" or who besmirched the honor of a particular government institution or leader. During the year, 10 journalists were charged with criminal libel according to the Ombudsman's office.

There was an active and often adversarial press and a broad range of print and electronic media outlets, including newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, and domestic and foreign cable stations. Seven national daily newspapers, 5 national broadcast television stations, 2 educational television stations, 1 religious broadcast television station, and more than 120 radio stations provided a broad choice of informational sources; all were privately or institutionally owned except for 1 government-owned educational television station. The law prohibits newspapers from holding radio and television concessions, and vice versa. The media carried a wide variety of political commentaries and other perspectives, both local and foreign.

In the run-up to the national elections in May, government advertising continued to be distributed along partisan lines and clearly favored certain newspapers despite their modest circulation. In October, the Torrijos administration centralized the purchase of advertising for the central government's non-autonomous entities under the Secretariat of Communication, which began using its discretion to purchase advertising on the basis of circulation, purchasing advertising in all the major newspapers for some topics.

Domestic and foreign journalists worked and traveled freely throughout the country. The law requires directors and deputy directors of media outlets to be citizens.

A 1999 law eliminated "gag laws" dating from the military dictatorship; however, legal actions against many journalists remained pending, and vestiges of the former gag laws still provided a means for charging journalists with defamation. The IACHR, the Inter-American Press Association, Reporters Without Borders, and other groups criticized these measures as efforts to censor the press. A 2002 report by the Ombudsman's office found that government officials brought 52 percent of the criminal libel suits against journalists and the media. In November, Constitutional reforms removed judges' ability to jail or fine persons for contempt without a trial, but did not reform criminal libel.

In March, police arrested editorialist and former president of La Prensa, Roberto Eisenmann and charged him with criminal libel in a case brought against him by the Attorney General. The charges stem from a January 30 column in which Eisenmann accused Sossa of "protecting criminals and filing charges against journalists."

In August, former President Mireya Moscoso included many journalists, including Roberto Eisenmann, among a list of individuals pardoned for various crimes. This pardon reduced significantly the number of journalists charged with libel and related crimes. At year's end, as many as 30 cases against journalists continued, including that of former Agricultural Minister Linnette Stanziola Apolaya against journalists Rafael Berrocal and Sady Tapia.

The press laws provide for the establishment of a censorship board, which monitored radio transmissions and had the authority to fine stations that violated norms regarding vulgar, profane, or obscene language. Despite occasional public protests over the content of radio programs, no stations were fined.

The Government did not restrict access to the Internet.

In March, the Disciplinary Commission of the University of Panama summoned Law and Politics Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal to provide a statement on April 6 in connection with Bernal's public criticism of the university rector and university academic policies. On April 6, Bernal left the hearing site before the hearing began after he received shouted insults from more than 20 administration personnel. In August, President Moscoso included Bernal on her presidential pardons list. At year's end, Bernal continued in his position at the university.

The Constitution provides for freedom of assembly and association, and the Government generally respected these rights in practice.

In October, over 28 persons were injured in Bocas del Toro, including 24 police officers, when anti-riot police attempted to open roads closed by residents protesting the local private utility company. The 22 protestors initially detained in the incident claimed after their release that police brutally beat them in detention and media published pictures of their injuries. Preliminary investigation by the Ombudsman's office indicated that protestors tied up police, took and set fire to their equipment, and tried to set fire to officers. Cases filed with the Public Ministry by both sides continued at year's end.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion provided that "Christian morality and public order" are respected, and the Government generally respected freedom of religion in practice.

The Constitution prohibits clerics from holding public office, except as related to social assistance, education, or scientific research. However, Catholicism enjoyed certain state-sanctioned advantages over other faiths. For example, the Constitution mandates that Catholicism be taught in public schools, although parents had the right to exempt their children from religious instruction.

The Constitution provides for these rights, and the Government generally respected them in practice. A 9:00 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors in the Panama City area remained in effect, and enforcement became strict under the outgoing administration's Operation Hard Hand policy.

The Constitution prohibits exile, and there were no reports of forced exile.

The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, and the Government has established a system for providing protection to refugees. In practice, the Government provided some protection against refoulement, the return of persons to a country where they feared persecution. The Government sometimes granted refugee status or asylum. A 1998 decree grants protection to all persons entering the country due to "state persecution based on race, gender, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion." While the 1998 decree provides for a meeting every 3 months to determine status, by August the Moscoso Government's Refugee Commission only met once, reviewed approximately 10 refugee cases, and granted asylum to 2 persons. The Torrijos Government's Refugee Commission received training from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and met twice within 2 months and reviewed 32 cases, granting asylum in 14 cases and deferring 8 to permit the presentation of additional evidence.

The Government cooperated with the office of the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees. In April, the UNHCR and the Government agreed to the establishment of a permanent UNHCR office in the country, and the Government granted the UNHCR unimpeded access to refugees and UNHCR project sites. The UNHCR operated out of a Panama City office and a regional office in Darien to monitor and to aid displaced Colombians.

The 1998 decree only grants 2 months' temporary protection to "displaced persons" in the case of a large influx. The UNHCR criticized the decree because it put persons at risk for forced repatriation within a few weeks of entering the country, without analysis of their possible refugee status. In practice, the Government did not enforce the 2-month time limit.

According to the UNHCR, there were approximately 821 Colombians under temporary protective status in the country. The Government did not permit displaced Colombians to move or work outside of their assigned villages. The Government generally remained reluctant to classify displaced Colombians as refugees, but began to work with the Government of Colombia and UNHCR on steps to regularize the status of Colombians displaced for several years under other immigration categories. Some Colombians have lived in the country for years without formal refugee status. In Jaque, central Darien, and Kuna Yala, the Government, along with the UNHCR, provided displaced Colombians with food, medical care, and access to public services, including schools and clinics. The Catholic Church and NGOs assisted the displaced Colombians with infrastructure and income generating projects. The International Committee of the Red Cross provided some limited assistance to the approximately 40-50 displaced Colombians living in the remote Alto Tuira border area. In February, the Government, the Colombian Government, and the UNHCR successfully conducted a voluntary and transparent repatriation of 24 Colombians from Boca de Cupe.

The authorities continued to refuse entry to Colombians who arrived by air and could not show that they had at least $500; however, according to UNHCR, Colombians arriving by air to claim refugee status generally had $500.