A shameful stain on Panama’s history  

It is a dark and shameful page in our history. The Cemis case was closed by the Panamanian justice system with pain and without glory. A legislator who revealed the payment of bribes in exchange for the approval of a bill 22 years ago shook the country, but most of its actors are still active in politics, as current as then: they are advisors, activists, magistrates, presidential candidates and another, president of the Republic. It is unfortunate that with so much evidence, confessions, testimonies and documents that proved the illegal acts, there was never justice. It is a stain that will haunt those involved all their lives, including the judges of the Supreme Court of that time, who lent themselves to a great farce that in the end ended in blatant impunity. Testimonies of innocence – outside the context of a public trial – are unimportant, because trying to convince public opinion of the alleged innocence must necessarily go through a judicial process that, in this case, did not exist. It only served as a cover for those involved to escape unscathed, a maneuver that, despite everything, did not achieve its objective because, regardless of the time, they are always told: “There goes one of the Cemis case.”  –  LA PRENSA, Jan. 18.