Bar Assc offers mediation in Panama institutional crisis
The National Bar Association (CNA) has offered to act as a mediator in what it calls describes as an ” institutional crisis” with increasing conflicts and differences faced by the three branches of the State (Legislative, Executive and Judicial), “in order to promote balance and social peace in the country
The offer came on Monday, March 12 after President, Juan Carlos Varela, threatened on Friday that he will assert the “authority” of his position on a “small group of deputies” who, according to him, want to create a confrontation in the country.
He was referring to moves in the Assembly to abolish the existing Credentials Commission The Opposition Democratic Change (CD) and Democratic Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) are seeking to change the Credentials Commission in the National Assembly currently controlled by Varela’s Panamenista Party.
ANC president, Dionicio Rodríguez, exhorted to the representatives of each of the organs of the State to comply with what the constitution provides
Article 2 states: “Public Power only emanates from the people. It is exercised by the State in accordance with this Constitution, by means of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Bodies, which act limited and separately, but in harmonic collaboration “.
Procrastination
Rodriguez reiterated the call of the ANC to the “head of government to appoint magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) in compliance with the political constitution employing the State Pact for Justice as a propitious and prior scenario for. (Varela has given three different dates for delaying the naming of judges, “after Carnival, after his Dubai trip, and after the Assembly imbroglio over the Commission.
The statements also have to do with the 187 audits that the comptroller Federico Humbert delivered to the Public Ministry (MP) on February 27 in which it was determined that 70 deputies of the Assembly corresponding to the five-year period 2009-2014 – of which 39 were re-elected in the May 2014 general elections – they transferred $247 million to communal councils and municipalities with reported malpractice and disappearing funds.
This led to the erection at the Assembly on Sunday of a “Wall of Corruption” made up of posters and banners denouncing corruption and impunity of elected officials