User:Osmino/Fernando Sanchez Campos

Fernando Sanchez Campos is a Costa Rican politician. In 2007 he created controversy for writing with Kevin Casas a document that was sent by electronic mail to Oscar Arias, by then president of Costa Rica, proposing a series of measures to favor the approval in a referendum of the so-called CAFTA-DR trade agreement with the United States. The referendum took place in October of 2007. Sanchez was deputy of the Party Liberation at the moment of elaborating and sending the document and Casas was vice-president of the Republic.

Eventually, the memorandum leaked to the press, creating an important controversy, leading to the resignation of vice-president Casas. Despite important pressures, Sanchez Campos did not resign to his post as congressman. He resigned instead to be a member of the parliament commissions studying Electoral Reforms and a project to create a Bank of Development see newspaper La Nacion, September 2007.

Date and place of birth
Fernando Sanchez was born in San José, Costa Rica on January 13, 1974.

Education
Fernando Sánchez Campos holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Oxford University. He also holds a MBA from INCAE (Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas) and a B.A. in Political Sciemce from the University of Costa Rica.

Controversy about the memorandum on the referendum on the CAFTA-DR trade agreement with the United States
In 2007 Sanchez Campos sent (jointly with Kevin Casas, at the time vice-president of Costa Rica), a memorandum to President Oscar Arias, suggesting a number of measures to enhance the support of the population in the October, 2007 referendum on the so-called  CAFTA-DR trade agreement. The memorandum was illegally downloaded from a computer in the Casa Presidencial (headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic) by an unknowned person who gave it to the press, which in turn published.

Some of the measures suggested in the memorandum were not particularly controversial, such as Casas and sanchez Campos suggestion to establish a committee of strategy for the campaign of support of the Yes camp; to create an wide social base of support for CAFTA-DR and to formalize an alliance with the mayors of the Partido Liberación Nacional (in power) to increase the popular support for the trade agreement with the U.S. Nevertheless, the memorandum also suggeted literally " to stimulate fear." Among others things, Casas and Sanchez Campos proposed to fuel fear among the poulation to loss of jobs, attacks to the democratic institutions, foreign interference and negative effects of a majoritary vote for the No on the governance of the nation. Some of the statements of Sanchez and Casas were especially irritating for those opposing Costa Rican involvement in CAFTA-DR. For example, Casas and Sanchez Campos urged the president and supporters of the agreement to " (...) to connect the NO with Fidel, Chávez and Ortega, in quite strident terms. It is possible that this type of campaign can be considered as inconvenient by some people, but for sure that it can have a considerable impact among the less sophisticated voters, the segment where we have the most serious trouble." The absence of arguments or evidence in the memorandum on any involvement of the regimes of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega in supporting sectors that oppose the CAFTA-DR trade agreement, created the impression that there was a deliberated intention to lie to the population. This generated an angry reaction from people and groups antagonizing the agreement and other observers, and brought about a serious political scandal. On October 31, 2007, the Procuraduría General de la República (State General Attorney) and the Union of Employees of the Universidad Nacional requested the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE) to determine if Sanchez had broken the Law against Corruption. As a result of the scandal, Casas resigned to the vice-presidency and to his post as Minister of National Planning. Sanchez did not resign to his position as congressman. Instead, he requested the so-called Sala IV (highest constitutional court) to decide if it was legal for the TSE to decide on whether he has infringed the Law against Corruption. The tribunal ruled that the TSE did not have jurisdiction to punish a deputy, a competency that fell to the Asamblea Legislativa (the Costa Rican parliament). On June 5, 2009 the TSE sent all legal documentation of the case to Asamblea Legislativa, which voted to sent the case to the archives and not to punish Sanchez Campos.

Oposition to separation of Catholic Church and State in Costa Rica
Citizens integrating the "Movimiento por un estado laico" (Movement for a lay state) presented a proposal, supported by several parlamentarians, to reform the Constitution, in order to separate the Catholic Church and the State. This initiative was supported by President Oscar Arias and Francisco Antonio Pacheco, congressman of the PLN and president of Asamblea Legislativa.

Sánchez Campos expressed publicly his vehement opposition to the reform. He indicated to the press that as a citizen and a Catholic, he thought that going ahead with the proposed reform will be a great error and that " we are not going to find anything positive in trying to remove God from Costa Rica." He also stated that " The Church has little to gain with this norm" (i.e. the statu quo), and he also added that he opposes the initiative pointing out to the great disadvantages that will bring about " a ill-conceived laicism  and an absolute absence of God in the country's life, which does not bring anything positive".