Director
Juan Diego Castro
Juan Diego Castro. 1955. Founder of JURISIS. He is the first director, and he is holding this important position since 2000. He practices as a trial attorney and mediator /conciliator.
Admitted to the Bar Association of Costa Rica since May 3, 1979.
Licenciado of Law and Notary Public since 1979. He carried out his studies at Universidad de Costa Rica. In 1974, he won the first prize in the Essay Contest of the General Education Department. He earned his specialty degree in Criminal Sciences in 1984 in the first graduate law class that graduated from said university. He was founder of the Costa Rican Association of Criminal Sciences.
Experience: He has dedicated his career to handle criminal and civil processes related to corporate crimes, environmental crimes, real estate frauds, computer crimes, crimes against intellectual property, crimes against reputation, financial crimes, traffic accidents and controversial probate proceedings; as well as to teaching and scientific research.
As an attorney, he has handled hundred of cases in the Courts of Justice throughout Costa Rica, representing his clients successfully, specially victims and offended corporations.
Since the onset of his professional life, many of the lawsuits where he has participated have been covered by the media, and the public opinion recognizes him for his seriousness, professional strictness and, especially, for being a staunch defender of the victims’ rights.
He has participated in specialization courses, conferences and seminars in Spain, Italy, Austria, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, and Aruba.
He was the pioneer of juridical computer science in Costa Rica. He was founder and Vice-President of the Ibereo-American Federation of Law and Computer Science in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic in 1984. He published his book ““Juristas y Computadoras” in 1991. He was the first Costa Rican lawyer to study the computer crime (1987). He has participated as a speaker and lecturer in most Ibero-American Congresses of Law and Computer Science held in Europe and Latin America. He was founder of the Costa Rican Association of Law and Computer Science. He chaired the Organizing Committee of the Ninth Ibero-American Congress of Law and Computer Science, “Justicia e Internet”, San José, April 2002.
As Chair Professor of Universidad Autónoma de Centro América (1994) and Universidad Escuela Libre de Derecho (2000), he was engaged in teaching of General Criminal Law and Criminology for eighteen years. He developed the “Algorithm of Crime in the Costa Rican Criminal Law” to explain the assumptions of punitability to his students and colleagues; he introduced the study of Victimology in the education of Law in Costa Rica. He was the pioneer of “In-trial oratory and strategy” in his college seminars and workshops.
He has published more than forty articles on topics related to Criminal Law, Law of Criminal Procedure, Criminology, Criminality and Journalism, Victimology, Juridical Computer Science, Teaching of Law, Medical Law, and Law of Computer Science.
Since 1987, he has participated as lecturer in almost every Forensic Medicine Meeting held in our country every year. He was founder of the Costa Rican Medical Law Association, and for several years he taught the class “Medical Malpractice” and “Civic Ethics” to the new professionals admitted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica.
He was Minister of Public Safety and of the Interior and Police, from May 1994 to July 1996. He promoted the passing of the General Police Law; he led the restructuring and strengthening of the Law Enforcement Forces; he fought corruption and disorganization in said ministries, proposed major reforms to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure; he openly opposed the political maneuvering; he confronted criminality and chaired the GAFIC, dedicated to fight asset laundering.
He was Minister of Justice, from 1996 to 1997, being in charge directly for restructuring the National Registry, fighting corruption, and establishing systems to control and prevent registry frauds.
Upon completing his office as a minister, he was slandered by La Nación newspaper when they falsely attributed him acts that he did not commit; consequently he sued them and won the suit when the court ordered the director and two journalists to pay the respective penalties, and the newspaper had to pay him a major compensation for damages, as well as to publish the ruling on the first ten pages of said newspaper on October 22, 1999. He published two books on this case: “La Nación condenada ¿Por qué?” (1998)” and “Los embusteros de la mala fe. Siete años de antiperiodismo furibundo” (2001).
He was the President of the Bar Association of Costa Rica from 2000 to 2002, elected by the largest number of votes ever received by those who have run for such position. He led the fight against university corruption.
In 2005 he published three books: “Hechos y Derechos”, “Entre columnas” and “Crímenes contra la democracia”.
In spite of all the time he dedicates to directing JURISIS and to the serious attention to his cases, he has found time to write poetry that he has published in three of his books: “Tiempo de chumicos” (2003), “Cosecha de trompos” (2008) and “Vértices de mis hamacas” (2009).
Since 2001, he publishes his weekly column of opinion, “Palanca”, in La Prensa Libre newspaper. http://www.prensalibre.co.cr
Juan Diego Castro is regularly consulted by colleagues, law students conducting research for their theses, and journalists of many print and electronic media about juridical, criminological and victimological topics.
He prepared the Bill called “Civil Defense” which was submitted by JURISIS to the Legislative Assembly in March 2007; this Bill contained major reforms to the criminal law and to the law of criminal procedure to fight crimes and enhance the protection of the victims’ rights. Some of those proposals were taken into consideration in Law 8720 of March 4, 2009, among which stands out Article 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which added “the restoration of the victim’s rights” as an objective o the criminal procedure.
Juan Diego Castro leads JURISIS, his most important enterprise, established with his students and strengthened with all his partners and staff, whom he continues to train as outstanding jurists and lawyers who, every day, hold in one hand the scale of Justice and in the other the level of ethics and techniques— the symbols of JURISIS-- to provide their clients with an efficient, top notch professional service.