Constitutional Court annuls the entire criminal process against Lourdes Flores Nano

The Constitutional Court declared the amparo lawsuit filed by Lourdes Celmira Rosario Flores Nano well-founded and annulled the entire criminal process pursued against her for alleged contributions from Constructora Norberto Odebrecht S.A. and Constructora Camargo Correa S.A. to her 2006 presidential campaign. The decision is contained in Judgment 212/2026, issued in Case No. 05762-2025-PA/TC, adopted by the Plenary on August 31, 2026, and published in the Constitutional Processes section of the Official Gazette El Peruano on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 (Year XXII, No. 4462, p. 5).

The ruling declares the nullity of the entire criminal process pursued against the petitioner, voids the preliminary investigation and the preparatory investigation referring to “Fact 1: Contributions to the 2006 presidential campaign,” annuls all subsequent actions derived from these, and orders the Public Prosecutor’s Office to issue the disposition ordering the archiving of the proceedings. The court held that the violation of the principles of legality and criminal typicity were proven.

An imputation based on a regulation posterior to the facts

The core of the reasoning is that the Prosecutor’s Office attributed the crime of money laundering in the modality of possession–receipt to the plaintiff, as provided in Article 2 of Law 27765, when the figure of patrimonial receiving was only incorporated into the Peruvian legal system by Legislative Decree 1249, in effect since November 26, 2016.

For the Collegiate Body, imputing this variant to events from 2006 implies a retroactive application of criminal law and a transgression of the principle of legality in its requirement of lex praevia. The judgment adds that the prosecutorial disposition also failed to individualize the predicate offense of the money nor coherently support that the petitioner knew or could presume its illicit origin at the date of the events.

The procedural path: from the prosecutorial disposition to the Plenary

• April 4, 2019: Disposition 1 opens the preliminary investigation, with an initial term of eight months.
• December 28, 2022: Disposition 43, from the Seventh Office of the Specialized Corporate Supra-provincial Prosecutor’s Office for Corruption Crimes of Public Officials – Special Team, formalizes and continues the preparatory investigation for 36 months.
• February 22, 2023: the petition for amparo is filed, corrected on May 5, 2023, and admitted on June 12, 2023.
• October 10, 2024, and September 24, 2025: the Third Specialized Constitutional Court and the Second Constitutional Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima declare the petition inadmissible, in the first and second instances.
• May 28, 2026: through Resolution 4, the First National Preparatory Investigation Court declares the exception of inadmissibility of action founded and orders the dismissal of the case.
• June 30, 2026: Disposition 7 concludes the preparatory investigation; the appeals from the Eighth Office of the Second Specialized Corporate Supra-provincial Prosecutor’s Office for Money Laundering Crimes and the Ad Hoc Public Prosecutor’s Office for the Odebrecht Case are granted on the same day.

The court justified ruling despite the favorable resolution not being final, upon confirming judicial delay, and specified that the preliminary investigation lasted three years and nearly nine months and the preparatory investigation three years and six months: seven years and two months in total.

The amounts described in the prosecutorial thesis

The sentence summarizes the concrete imputation: the petitioner was a presidential candidate for the Christian People’s Party in 2006, with a formula registered in January of that year before the Special Electoral Jury of Lima Centro. According to the Prosecutor’s Office:

• Odebrecht allegedly delivered around US$ 10,000 and US$ 15,000, following meetings in December 2005 in which support of US$ 500,000 was discussed.
• Camargo Correa allegedly contributed US$ 100,000 through Marco de Moura Wanderley, of which US$ 20,000 were allocated to the congressional campaign of Horacio Cánepa Torre.
• The money was not banked nor declared as a contribution to the ONPE.

The court also recalled that Odebrecht’s plea agreement with the United States government, dated December 21, 2016, acknowledged corrupt payments of US$ 29 million between 2005 and 2014.

Dissenting votes and scope of the decision

The ruling included the dissenting votes of magistrates Pacheco Zerga and Monteagudo Valdez, who considered that the lawsuit should be declared inadmissible due to the existence of a suitable ordinary legal channel and because it concerned a matter of classification reserved for criminal justice. The judgment was signed by Domínguez Haro, who presided over the Plenary, along with Morales Saravia, Gutiérrez Ticse, Ochoa Cardich —the rapporteur— and Hernández Chávez.

The decision is based on the criteria of Judgment 185/2025, issued in Case 02109-2024-PHC/TC, regarding the validity of Legislative Decree 1249. For readers, the ruling closes in the constitutional jurisdiction an investigation spanning nearly a decade linked to the Odebrecht case and sets a clear limit: a criminal modality created after the facts cannot be imputed, even if the prosecutorial investigation was already advanced.

Source: El Peruano, Year XXII, No. 4462, Tuesday, October 27, 2026, Constitutional Processes section, p. 5 (official reference: W-2565014-1).