They admit constitutional vacuum on reappointment to magistrate and regulation will be at the end of March

The Political Constitution of the State (CPE) prohibits the re-election of magistrates to the Judicial Branch, however there is a gap with respect to reappointment in any of the four judicial entitiesadmitted the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Jerjes Mercado, who said that the preparation of the pre-selection regulations for the next jurisdictional authorities must be completed by the end of March.

“The Constitution says that you cannot be re-elected, but it is clear that the Bolivian people are not satisfied with the current justice administrators and they do not want to re-elect them either; but you also have to be honest, you have to comply with what the Constitution says, what happens if a magistrate who was in the Supreme Court -for example- postulates for the Constitutional Court, legally there is nothing that prevents it constitutionally speaking”, explained the president of the deputies.

Articles 183, 188, numeral III of 194 and 198 of the Magna Carta they prohibit the re-election of the magistrates of the Judicial Branch; however, it does not mention anything about the reappointment of other senior officials of the country’s judicial entity. This year the Plurinational Assembly must preselect applicants for the four instances of the Judicial Branch; Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP), Magistracy Council (CM) and Agro-environmental Court, there are a total of 54 positions that candidates must fill.

The Assembly, said Mercado, will not stop despite the fact that there is a citizen initiative collection of signatures to promote a referendum that modifies the CPE and changes the pre-selection rules and set a deadline of March 31 to conclude with the regulations and launch the call.

“I think that until the end of the month we must complete the regulation process approved, later it will be the moment to advance to the call for the pre-selection of the candidates”, added, Jerjes Mercado.

Likewise, he said that the proposed regulation presented by the MAS bench It has already been sent to the Vice Presidency of the State and this must be sent to the Mixed Constitution Commission, which will be the parliamentary instance that will carry out the entire process and culminate before the first semester of 2023.

Later, he assured that they will seek consensus with the opponents to regulate the call and thus dismissed the possibility of approving a “short law” As mentioned by some deputies from the ruling party, given the impossibility of reaching agreements with the opponents.