Paraguay
How the ruling party sustained and promoted Hernán Rivas in his rise to the JEM and the Senate
According to Última Hora, Honor Colorado backed Hernán Rivas for years despite allegations about his law degree. The outlet also said that Santiago Peña was one of his main defenders until political pressure led to his departure.
According to a reconstruction published by Última Hora, Hernán Rivas’s rise to Congress and to the Jury of Magistrates’ Prosecution (JEM) was driven by the ruling party, which kept him in different posts despite allegations that his law degree was fraudulent.
The outlet recalled that Rivas was appointed in 2020 as the Chamber of Deputies’ representative to the JEM with the support of Cartista lawmakers and allies, even though he had no professional experience and only registered his degree days later with the Ministry of Education and Culture. It also reported that in 2021 he was elected again with the backing of ruling-party figures.
By 2023, after taking office as senator, he was once again designated as a representative to the JEM and soon after became president of the body. Última Hora noted that his time in that post was marked by questions about his ability to lead sessions, explain the origin of his assets and sustain his public interventions. He resigned as president of the Jury on August 1 of that year.
The newspaper also said that lawyers’ associations and opposition leaders cast doubt on rulings signed with Rivas’s vote. Among the precedents it mentioned was the case of San Pedro prosecutor Jorge Eduardo López Lohman, whose removal was deemed irregular by different sectors.
Última Hora also said that Santiago Peña was one of Rivas’s main political backers. It cited statements by the president in which he said the matter should be resolved in court and publicly defended the then senator, whom he described as a friend.
In that same vein, the outlet recalled that in October 2023 the Honor Colorado bloc in the Senate expressed its support for Rivas and argued that MEC documentation backed his university degree. It also noted that Congress shelved a bill that sought to raise the experience requirements to serve on the JEM.
Regarding the investigation into the degree, Última Hora said that the late José Casañas Levi, former director of the Anti-Corruption Unit of the MEC, had concluded in 2023 that the degree should not have been registered and that Universidad Sudamericana did not have the corresponding academic documentation.
The outlet added that, after judicial back-and-forth, the Supreme Court annulled Rivas’s dismissal and allowed the oral trial to proceed. In that context, in April 2026 the senator requested an indefinite unpaid leave after a meeting of the Honor Colorado bloc at Mburuvicha Róga with Peña. The opposition questioned that move and considered it a mechanism to avoid an impeachment or an immediate resignation.
Finally, always according to Última Hora, in May 2026 Rivas ended up resigning because of the accumulated political pressure surrounding the case.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with assistance from artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do its own reporting on this event.
