The executive vice president of the Institutionality and Justice Foundation (Finjus), Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán, considered today that the process carried out by the National Council of the Judiciary to evaluate and choose the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice has a marked political component and that publicly exposing magistrates who have been in office for many years threatens the independence of that institution.
He stated that the National Council of the Judiciary (CNM) does not have the necessary technical capacity to evaluate the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), also regretting the way in which three magistrates were separated from the high court.
“I wonder what technical capacity a National Council of the Judiciary has to evaluate judges of the Supreme Court of Justice,” questioned the jurist.
Period
The Finjus executive maintained that the judges of the SCJ should be appointed for a period similar to that of the magistrates of the Constitutional Court, to strengthen judicial independence.
“Exposing a judge from that high court threatens the very independence of the Supreme Court of Justice. If the same body that evaluates is the one that finally appoints, there is a problem of independence,” he emphasized.
Castaños Guzmán warned that in the country there is a constitutional design problem that generates “noise” in the structures of the judicial system. “As long as we continue with that model we are going to continue in the same way. There is a problem of structure,” he said.
The jurist considered that the establishment of a single term for judges would contribute to reducing conflicts and preserving institutional stability.
He also questioned that in the interviews for the aspiring SCJ judges “interests were handled,” and he valued the careers of the three judges who were separated from the SCJ.
The jurist defended, however, the actions of the president of the Constitutional Court, recalling that his position was as head of that body and not as a former judge of the Supreme Court.
Finally, he reiterated his proposal that judges be chosen for a single period, as part of a comprehensive reform of the judicial system.
The National Council of the Judiciary has not made known its motivations for removing judges Pilar Jiménez Ortiz, Manuel Alexis Read Ortiz and Moisés Ferrer Landrón from the Supreme Court of Justice, who were evaluated on Thursday, October 2, and it was decided the next day not to ratify them.
Judges
The way of evaluating and selecting high court judges carried out by the National Council of the Judiciary has generated much discomfort in the legal community, because it highlights the political component that prevails in that process, led by President Luis Abinader.
