Oscar Abel Hassenteufel Salazar (; born 14 April 1945) is a Bolivian lawyer and jurist serving as president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal since 2021. A perennial figure in the Bolivian judiciary, Hassenteufel previously held seats on the now-defunct Supreme Court of Justice from 1993 to 2001 and National Electoral Court from 2001 to 2006, presiding over both bodies from 1999 to 2001 and 2002 to 2006, respectively.
Raised in a political family from eastern Chuquisaca, Hassenteufel attended the University of San Francisco Xavier, where he earned a doctorate of law in 1969. Having clerked for the High Court of Chuquisaca while in university, he entered the legal field as an examining magistrate for the Vaca Díez and Azurduy provinces. In addition to his own private practice, Hassenteufel also held public positions in the Prosecutor's Office and Comptroller General's Office prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court. Elected by the National Congress in 1993, he assumed the presidency of the high court in 1999, a position he exercised until his resignation in 2001. Less than half a year after vacating his seat on the Supreme Court, Hassenteufel was appointed to the National Electoral Court, serving as its vice president from 2001 to 2002 and president from 2002 to 2006.
Following his retirement, Hassenteufel returned to private practice, during which time he headed the Professional Football League's Tribunal of Sports Justice. In 2019, he emerged from retirement to seek a seat on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, whose previous members had been deposed and arrested amid an ongoing electoral and political crisis. Appointed alongside five other new members, Hassenteufel assisted in holding the snap 2020 general election and the 2021 regional elections that followed and assumed the presidency of the electoral court upon the resignation of his predecessor, .
Early life and career
Oscar Hassenteufel was born on 14 April 1945 on a guayabilla farm in Ticucha, a small town situated in Chuquisaca's Luis Calvo Province. His father, Dardo Hassenteufel, was a regionally influential member of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, a party with a historically strong partisan base in the Chaco Boreal, the lowland region encompassing Chuquisaca's easternmost provinces; he served as sub-prefect of Luis Calvo from 1956 to 1960, was mayor of Muyupampa from 1967 to 1969, and represented the department as a substitute senator from 1985 to 1989. While Hassenteufel's brother, Antonio, followed their father into politics—representing the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement in the Chamber of Deputies from 1989 to 1993—Oscar took a different path, and though briefly affiliated with the Social Democratic Party's youth wing, he remained politically independent for most of his life.
Hassenteufel began his education in the neighboring town of Monteagudo before being sent to live with relatives in Tartagal, Salta, where he completed his primary schooling. While in Argentina, Hassenteufel quickly assimilated into Argentine culture, even nearly renouncing his Bolivian nationality in order to serve in the Argentine Navy, only to be denied permission and forced home by his father. He then completed his secondary education at the Sacred Hearth School in Sucre.
At his father's urging, Hassenteufel studied medicine at the University of San Francisco Xavier; however, he quickly switched his major to law just two days after enrolling. He finally graduated as a lawyer in 1969, receiving degrees in political and social science as well as a doctorate of law. While in university, he worked as a law clerk for the High Court of Chuquisaca between 1967 and 1968 and was an actuary for the First Criminal Court from 1968 to 1969.
Shortly after graduating, Hassenteufel was hired as an examining magistrate, overseeing cases in the Vaca Díez and later Azurduy provinces between 1969 and 1970. After briefly serving as superintendent of mines in Potosí, Hassenteufel moved to La Paz in 1971, where he was brought on as a public official in the Prosecutor's Office, working for a short time as a civil prosecutor before shifting focus to criminal procedure from 1971 to 1973. In his final public functions outside the judiciary, Hassenteufel served as a legal advisor for the Central Bank from 1989 to 1991 before moving on to the Comptroller General's Office, where he managed the body's legal analysis and responsibility promotion departments from 1991 to 1993.