The Constitutional Court rejects a habeas corpus and establishes the calculation of the statute of limitations

The Plenary of the Constitutional Court declared unfounded the habeas corpus petition filed by Elías Segovia Ruiz, sentenced to six years and four months of imprisonment for aggravated embezzlement to the detriment of the Regional Government of Apurímac. The decision is contained in Judgment 213/2026, issued in Case No. 03861-2025-PHC/TC, published in the Official Gazette El Peruano on Monday, October 26, 2026 (Year XXII, No. 4461), in the Constitutional Processes section.

The ruling, adopted in a Jurisdictional Plenary session on August 31, 2026, rejects the claim to ex officio extinguish the criminal action. The court concluded that the convicting sentences were issued before the statute of limitations expired and that, therefore, the rights to due process, a reasonable timeframe, and the constitutional principle of prescription were not violated.

The conviction and the judicial history of the case

Segovia Ruiz was convicted via Resolution 55, dated October 14, 2020, as the perpetrator of a continued crime against public administration, subtype aggravated embezzlement. Resolution 75, dated January 30, 2023, issued by the Criminal Appeals Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Apurímac, confirmed the sentence in all its parts.

According to the resolution itself, the convicted party authorized illegal budgetary modifications through formalization, giving a final application different from that provided for in regional executive resolutions during the years 2012, 2013, and 2014, charged to the projects of the New Hospital of Andahuaylas and the Basic Sanitation of Abancay.

The constitutional appeal was directed against the judge of the Third Supra-provincial Single-Judge Criminal Court of Abancay, Juan Edward Suyo Rojas, and against the judges of the Criminal Appeals Chamber Olmos Huallpa, Paz Carpio, and Mendoza Marín. The plaintiff is currently deprived of his liberty in the Abancay Penitentiary Establishment.

The criterion: formalization suspends the prescription clock

The central point of the litigation was the date from which the term is computed. The defense argued that the computation should have begun on July 10, 2014, with the last Regional Executive Resolution 561-2-2014-GR, and that, after ten years and six months, the criminal action had already prescribed.

The court specified that the continued acts occurred between June 30, 2012, and June 30, 2014, and that Provision 3, dated October 1, 2015, ordered the formalization and continuation of the preparatory investigation. From that date, the elapsed time was nullified and a new term began to run, in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 339 of the New Code of Criminal Procedure.

The applied timeframes were as follows:

• Maximum penalty for the crime at the time of the events: eight years, according to the second paragraph of Article 389 of the Penal Code, modified by Law 30111, published on November 26, 2013.
• Ordinary statute of limitations period: eight years.
• Extraordinary period: twelve years.
• Expiration of the period, counted from the formalization: October 1, 2027.

With that calculation, the Plenary concluded that the sentences of October 14, 2020, and January 30, 2023, were issued within the period and declared the lawsuit unfounded.

Individual votes and the limit to suspension

The sentence was adopted with the voting grounds of magistrates Domínguez Haro, president of the collegiate body, and Pacheco Zerga. The latter disagreed with the reasoning regarding the statute of limitations: he argued that suspension is a pause and that, once exhausted, the period resumes, such that the total count would be thirteen years from June 30, 2014, expiring on June 30, 2027.

The court further recalled that the suspension cannot be indefinite, as maintaining the criminal action in force without a time limit would violate the right to a reasonable timeframe. In this line, it cited Judgment 45/2026, from Case No. 00013-2024-PI/TC, which confirmed the constitutionality of Law 31751, a regulation that set a maximum of one year for the suspension of the count for crimes with statute of limitations periods not exceeding twenty years.

The Plenary also delimited the scope of the habeas corpus: the statute of limitations can be discussed in a constitutional venue only if the criminal justice system has previously determined the temporal elements that allow for the calculation. The Criminal Court of Appeals had declared the lawsuit inadmissible, through Resolution 8 of May 13, 2025, considering that the challenged resolution was not final as a cassation appeal was pending.

Impact for convicts seeking to extinguish their sentence

The resolution closes the constitutional route for those who, with a final conviction or in cassation, intend to extinguish the sentence by alleging the passage of time. The criterion reinforces that the period is interrupted by the formalization of the preparatory investigation and that the control of the validity of the criminal action corresponds, in the first instance, to the ordinary judiciary.

Source: Official Gazette El Peruano, Year XXII, No. 4461, Monday, October 26, 2026, Constitutional Processes section, page 1 (official reference: Judgment 213/2026, Case No. 03861-2025-PHC/TC).