Court decision a manipulation of Justice -Vice President

The unanimous decision Supreme Court that the law  taking Panama out of the  Central American Parliament (Parlacen) is unconstitutional, is a manipulation of justice says  Vice President Juan Carlos Varela.

He said that Tuesday’s decision  is a clear reflection of the "manipulation of justice by the Executive Branch "  in order to "ensure the immunity of the outgoing President in 2014."

Varela, who as chancellor promoted the approval of Law 78 of December 11, 2009, which took Panama out of Parlacen, spoke  through a Panamenista Party statement, signed by him as president of the group.

"All these measures are aimed at the protection and impunity in corruption scandals of the present regime and the persecution of their opponents," he said in the note.

The same position was taken at the Assembly by Panameñista deputies Jose Blandon and Adolfo Valderrama, who warned of executive interference in the courts to obtain immunity for Martinelli.

A spokesman of the executive, Luis Eduardo Camacho, denied that version with the argument that today neither Members of the Assembly or Parlacen have immunity since the Supreme Court is the entity responsible for authorizing or investigations against those officials . .

Camacho was elected in 2009 as deputy of the Central American Parliament, but the Supreme Court stripped him of the seat in a ruling dated November 16, 2009, a decision that, according to his personal opinion, "transcended its powers."

President Martinelli, in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Conferencel, accepted the decision of the court. Earlier,  in announcing the Government's intention to remove Panama from Parlacen between 2009 and 2010, described the agency as ineffective, expensive and "a den of impunity.”