Peru’s SC president resigns over corruption scandal

LIMA: Peru’s Supreme Court president Duberli Rodriguez offered his resignation on Thursday after the publication of a series of audio recordings sparked a growing scandal over the sale of sentences and influence peddling.

"Given the institutional crisis that the judicial branch is going through, I present my irrevocable resignation from the post," said Rodriguez in a short letter published on the Supreme Court’s Twitter account.

Rodriguez said the reasons for his resignation would be explained during a Supreme Court extraordinary session on Thursday afternoon. He had been under pressure from Supreme Court colleagues demanding he resign so someone else -- completely untouched by the scandal -- could be tasked with reorganizing the judicial system.

Peru’s judicial branch had announced a 90-day emergency on Wednesday, signed by Rodriguez and published in the El Peruano newspaper. "In response to the judicial problems it is imperative that urgent and immediate measures are adopted to restore the normal, efficient and transparent development of jurisdictional activities," the judicial authority’s resolution stated.