Attorney General says TE Martinelli ruling unconstitutional

Javier Caraballo The Attorney General (in charge), pronounced the Resolution of March 22, 2022 of the Electoral Court (TE), which recognizes the validity of the specialty principle of the Panama-United States extradition treaty, in favor of Ricardo Martinelli, as unconstitutional reports La Prensa.

According to Caraballo, the decision endorsed by magistrates Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá, of the TE, violates five articles of the Constitution (numbers 4, 18, 32, 142 and 143, numeral 3), given that both issued a statement on an issue “Totally removed from its competency… And this led to generating an erratic motivation for the decision.”

Caraballo’s opinion was requested by the magistrate, María Eugenia López Arias rapporteur of the unconstitutionality lawsuit that the lawyer Héctor Herrera presented against the Resolution of March 22, 2022 of the TE, which Juncá and Araúz signed. Eduardo Valdés Escoffery saved the vote. There is another similar lawsuit, filed by Linda Guevara, whose rapporteur is Judge Maribel Cornejo.

“If the limit of the jurisdiction of the Electoral Court is established by the electoral law, it is obvious that the analysis in that seat of a subject submitted to the ordinary criminal justice, in the absence of the guarantee offered by the right to a judge predetermined by law , the right to bilaterality, the right to equality between the parties and the right to double instance, imply a clear infringement of competition”, Caraballo points out in his opinion, dated April 1.

Junca and Araúz recognized the validity of the specialty principle in favor of Martinelli, in a ruling in which they decided to maintain the criminal electoral jurisdiction of the former president. The criminal judge Baloisa Marquínez had requested the lifting of Martinelli’s jurisdiction, who is being investigated for alleged money laundering in the New Business and Odebrecht cases.