Unanimously, the Plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), through a ruling dated November 8, 2022, ruled that article 25 is not unconstitutional; the phrase “10% in training on inclusive political actions in favor of the empowerment of people with disabilities” contained in article 218, numeral 2, literal a; article 352 numeral 3, and the last paragraph of article 373 of the Consolidated Text of the Electoral Code.
This ruling was handed down in two previously accumulated files, containing unconstitutionality claims filed by the lawyers Ian Bayles and Zulay Rodríguez Lu and others, in order to favor the principle of procedural economy and the uniformity of the criteria applied.
The Plenary concluded that the norms demanded as unconstitutional since article 25 of the Electoral Code, had already been declared through the pronouncement of the CSJ of 2009, which determined that said provision does not transgress the Political Constitution of the Republic because “…every citizen excluded has the appropriate mechanism and sufficient time to request their re-registration in the Preliminary Electoral Roll. That is why a sanction or prohibition does not operate in the norm, but rather a control mechanism that seeks to have an Electoral Roll as refined and attached to the reality of potential voters.
In addition to the sentence referred to in article 218.2.a of the Electoral Code, the Plenary determined that it is not unconstitutional since it is a legislative measure that promotes and tends to make effective the full exercise of the right to participation in political and public life of people with disabilities.
Meanwhile, regarding numeral 3 of article 352, the Plenary has no doubts about its constitutionality, taking into account that the political parties are empowered to decide the democratic method so that the people who will occupy the positions of their postulates for various popularly elected posts.
Finally, regarding the questions about the constitutionality of the last paragraph of article 373 of the Electoral Code, after an extensive analysis, in the opinion of that Maximum Corporation of Justice, said norm is not based on an underlying legal discrimination against women , but it constitutes an affirmative action to guarantee, in conditions of equality, the enjoyment or exercise of one or more human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons or groups that require it.
This ruling was endorsed by the magistrates, Olmedo Arrocha Osorio, José E. Ayú Prado Canals, Cecilio Cedalise Riquelme, María Cristina Chen Stanziola, Miriam Cheng Rosas, María Eugenia López Arias, Carlos Alberto Vásquez Reyes and Carmen Luz De Gracia Jurado ( alternate).
