No more than three weeks after the Central American Court of Justice ruled against Costa Rica in a case involving tariffs, Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno issued a scathing response in the editorial pages of the daily La Nación.

Calling the Managua, Nicaragua-headquartered tribunal “pathetic” and a “disgrace,” Stagno said Costa Rica has never and will never recognize the court.

“With its irresponsible behavior, the Central American Court of Justice deserves nothing more than the pity of Costa Rica,” he wrote.

The Central American Court of Justice was created in 1994 as the judicial arm of the Central American Integration System (SICA), which Costa Rican President Oscar Arias now heads.

But Costa Rica never ratified the statute of the court and, therefore, has refused to recognize the judicial body or its recent ruling. The ruling says that higher tariffs on imports, which Costa Rica introduced in 2007, are in violation of the law.

Stagno said the Rules and Orders of Procedures of the court have clear deficiencies, interfere with constitutional powers and grant “despicable” privileges to the judges who serve in the court. While the court highlighted a small case in Costa Rica involving tariffs, it chooses to ignore larger issues in the four countries that recognize it such as electoral fraud and coups, Stagno said, with the “sole purpose of trying to impose its competence and jurisdiction on the oldest democracy in Latin America: Costa Rica.”

Listing a handful of cases he said were “pathetic anecdotes from a court that nobody respects,” Stagno wrote that the countries that subscribe to the court do not abide by its decisions.

“This is the real CCJ: a court that does nothing and represents nothing more than the interests of judges and their messengers,” Stagno wrote. “It's a court that Costa Rica should continue to keep a safe distance from for our own good.”