Costa Rica officially elected Emilia Navas Aparicio as the District Attorney for the next four years. Navas is the first woman to take this position in 43 years (the first District Attorney Costa Rica named was Francisco Echeverri in 1975).

53-year-old Navas had been working as the Ad-interim District Attorney since October of last year, when the Supreme Court suspended Jorge Chavarría. Navas received the votes of all 22 judges in a public voting that took place this Monday, March 12.

Navas graduated as an attorney from the University of Costa Rica in 1988, she has a Master’s degree in Justice Administration with emphasis in Administration of Criminal Justice from the National University, she has held positions as a judge, auxiliary district attorney, and ad-interim district attorney.

The new District Attorney maintained a high profile in the last few months since she had to take on the Cementazo investigation; she also reopened the “Crucitas” case against former two-time President Oscar Arias; and she presented the accusation against Judge Celso Gamboa as a suspect for influence peddling.

Navas has received the support of the public opinion since she took on her position as ad-interim district attorney; Navas was replacing former district attorney Jorge Chavarria who chose to retire on December 1st after being suspended in October. Chavarria’s suspension came as a result of the investigation of his role in situations that led to the dismissal by the district attorney’s office of two cases of influence peddling at the beginning of 2017, one of which involved the main actor of the China Cement scandal Juan Carlos Bolaños and former member of congress Walter Céspedes and a second one against congressmen Otto Guevara and Victor Morales Zapata.