This Thursday the Electoral Court (TE) published the edict through which former president Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal is notified about the lifting of the electoral criminal jurisdiction.
In this sense, the former president’s defense announced that he will appeal the decision of Judge Edmara Jaén Jaén. They will have two business days to appeal and it will then be the Plenary of the TE in charge of deciding whether to uphold the decision of the Second Administrative Court of the TE or if Martinelli remains with the electoral criminal jurisdiction.
On January 28, a hearing in the “New Business” case was to be held, but it was suspended because the defense of former President Martinelli presented a certification from the TE indicating that as of that day he had electoral criminal jurisdiction for being president. of the party Realizing Goals (RM), since the group is in the campaign period.
Given what was presented by Martinelli’s defense, that day the suspension of the process was ordered for the former president, and in early February the Judge Third Liquidator of Criminal Cases, Baloisa Marquínez, in charge of the case, asked the TE to lift the electoral criminal jurisdiction.
It was established that the hearing act should be resumed from May 19 to 23, 2022, and as an alternate date from July 4 to 6, 2022.
The investigation into the “New Business” case began in 2017, when the Public Ministry learned of the alleged commission of a crime against the economic order, in the form of money laundering in the purchase of the Epasa publishing group.
After hearing the news, Luis Eduardo Camacho, spokesman for former President Martinelli, declared: “If you look at the resolution issued by the Second Administrative Electoral Court, you have to conclude that what the judge did was pass the ball to the magistrates of the Court Electoral, who will now have to resolve that request before the appeal that the defense of former president Martinelli is going to present.
He added that the judge evidently “didn’t even review the file. I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t send it to her or she didn’t read it, a clear reason for the violations of the law, the constitution, even the international treaties to which incurred by simply requesting the lifting of jurisdiction, which is already a violation of the law, due to the conditions for which Martinelli was extradited to Panama”.
According to Camacho, the good thing about this lifting of the electoral criminal jurisdiction is that “the Electoral Tribunal will have the opportunity to vindicate itself, to clean up its image and that of the magistrates, which was severely damaged in the last elections, when it arbitrarily and Ricardo Martinelli’s candidacy for Mayor of Panama was illegal, that damaged the credibility of the magistrates”.
