June 28, 2023, 4:00 AM
June 28, 2023, 4:00 AM
The selection of candidates for the judicial elections is frozen. On the one hand, the Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) is still analyzing an appeal against the process and, on the other, the Legislative Assembly has not yet approved the regulation of ‘the short law’ that will give viability to this selection.
Given this scenario, the vice president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Francisco Vargas expressed his concern about the delays and warned of a possible scenario of a “power vacuum” in the Judiciary if “the peremptory deadlines” are not met
He stressed that December 3 is the deadline to carry out the elections because the elected authorities —23 magistrates and three counselors— must begin their term on January 3, 2024, a term that is constitutional. This means that the selected candidates must be presented to the maximum TSE until September, 100 days before the elections. “The deadlines are tight,” said Vargas.
He assured that it is necessary that legislators and magistrates of the TCP “give the country that certainty” “to carry out this electoral process, otherwise it could reach January 3 and not have duly elected authorities and that would imply another scenario in which produces a kind of power vacuum of the highest authorities in charge of the administration of Justice”, alerted the national electoral authority.
At the moment, the Mixed Constitution Commission of the Legislative Assembly works on the regulations for the pre-selection of candidates for elections courts in order to integrate the Judicial Branch and the Constitutional Court.
“The Mixed Commission is working on a regulation and will later go to the Assembly for approval,” said the head of the MAS bench in Deputies, Andrés Flores. The document must be sanctioned during a session of the plenary of the Assembly.
