Alba Luz Ramos

Alba Luz Ramos Vanegas (born June 3, 1949) is a Nicaraguan lawyer and judge. She has served as president of the Supreme Court of Justice since 2010, and between 2003 and 2003. She is member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front since the 1970s.

Early life Alba Luz Ramos Vanegas was born June 3, 1949, in León, Nicaragua to Adán Ramos Moncada and Margarita Vanegas de Ramos.

Once a member of the National Women’s Coalition, Ramos was a co-author and principal proponent of Law 779, a comprehensive bill aimed at violence against women, which was enacted by the National Assembly in 2012 and heralded by women’s groups as “saving lives”.

In 2017, La Prensa began a profile of Ramos by saying: “If there is any official in Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua who has the affection and admiration of various social and political sectors, including those antagonistic to the government of the caudillo, that official is a woman, and her name is Alba Luz Ramos Vanegas.” At the same time, they noted that critics and constitutional law experts were disapproving of her administration of one of Nicaragua’s three main branches of government.

In August 2021, following on the arrests of seven presidential pre-candidates in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election, Ramos was sanctioned by the European Union (EU), which charged her with undermining the rule of law by using the justice system to favor Ortega's administration, specifically by selectively criminalizing opponents, violating due process, and arbitrary detaining and disqualifying opposition candidates and political parties. This froze any assets in the EU and barred doing business with European companies or traveling to the EU. In November, she was also sanctioned by Canada and the United Kingdom.

Personal life Ramos was married to Leónidas Arellano Hartin, who died in 2000. She has a daughter and two grandchildren, as of 2017.

In 2009, she faced nepotism allegations, and acknowledged that judges Abelardo Alvir Ramos and Adda Benicia Vanegas Ramos were her nephew and niece, and that the public defender Egberto Adán Ramos Solís was also her nephew. She insisted they had earned their positions but Nicaraguan law barred any hires of relatives by people in positions of power.