Martinelli lawyer rapped for bad judicial practice

WHILE calls for ex-president Ricardo Martinelli to return to Panama to face justice in 14 criminal investigations grow daily, his legal team continues to come up with new stalling ploys, and one of them has earned one of the lawyers a  knuckle rapping from the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in a ruling issued October 15,, has hit back at one of the lawyers Rogelio Cruz and accused him of “procedural unfairness”.

They point out that former President Ricardo Martinelli violated human rights

The Court  rejected a challenge from Cruz against Judge Harry Diaz, as part of the process involving illegal wire tapping of political opponents, journalists, judges and others during Martinelli’s time in office. Rejecting the challenge Diaz, the Court concluded that Cruz acted with lack of procedural fairness because he presented the report without power for that representation.

The Supreme Court (CSJ) called attention to the lawyer Rogelio Cruz, a member of the defense team of former President Ricardo Martinelli, considering as a “bad judicial practice” their actions to file a challenge against Judge Harry Diaz, despite they had no power to represent the former president in the process followed by the wiretaps.

In the ruling that rejected the challenge to  Diaz, with areport by Judge Abel Zamorano, the plenary of the Supreme Court concluded that the action by Cruz was  “bad judicial practice”.

In the challenge, Cruz claimed to have an enmity with Diaz, who acts as a prosecutor in the trial of Martinelli for alleged offenses against the inviolability of secrecy and privacy, and embezzlement.

However, this alleged enmity was denied by Diaz when presenting his version before the full court.

Asked yesterday about the knuckle rapping, Cruz insisted that he is legally constituted as attorney for Martinelli and  denied acting judicial disloyalty.