Raising the bar at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Justice has been renewed with the entry of two new members, thus adding five magistrates in a plenary session of nine members. María Eugenia López Arias now presides over the Judicial Branch, from where she will be able to undertake a great pending task: to lead the changes that justice needs in Panama, for which the Executive has promised her an additional $15 million, “to contribute to the strengthening of justice already the effective implementation of the judicial career ”, said the President of the Republic last Sunday. The debt that the Judicial has with the society is the enormous, reason why its new members face great challenges; the first, to restore credibility to justice, with rulings in accordance with the law and the Constitution. This same year, His leadership will be tested in high-profile hearings – such as the Odebrecht and Blue Apple cases – where senior former officials are indicted. It also has pending the task of correcting the excessive legal formalism that undermines judicial processes and that ends up being the way to circumvent the law and promote impunity. The outgoing magistrates (and some current ones) have set the bar very low, but if we want to be a respectable country, they will have to gain height. – LA PRENSA,  Jan 4.