One of them will fill the gap left by the current general prosecutor, Raúl Melara, when he was exonerated from the position of deputy magistrate to run for the Prosecutor’s Office. Nominal and public elections were fraught with complaints between MPs for alleged “illegality” in the appointment.
Among the claims of the PCN deputies for an alleged “illegality” in the appointment of three lawyers who will fill three vacancies as substitute magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice; The assembly took the nominal and public oath of the new officials.
PCN deputies Eeileen Romero, Francisco Merino, Reynaldo Cardoza and Raúl Beltrhán Bonilla strongly asked their fellow President of the Assembly, Mario Ponce, to elect one of the three magistrates whom the Assembly intends to swear on Friday.
Deputy Cardoza said that he did not know who would choose this day, so he asked to be exonerated from continuing to read the vote.
“It is recognizable that we are facing a situation full of irregularities, I am very sorry because you are a colleague of the PCN party and you are in a totally dissonant attitude with the rest. You did not have the slightest courtesy to comment on at least what was going to happen, who are the proposed ones, it is a tamale that corresponds to other political forces. But the continuation of this procedure is already wrong, because we clearly want the deputy Patricia Valdivieso (ARENA) to be replaced to vote (votes) because Cardoza has abstained and they are starting to see who they can replace arbitrarily “, Merino attacked .
However, Ponce explained that the opinion comes from the beginning of November that the same actors who were voted had, “who should have informed them was the leader of the faction, but did not appear yesterday, the President of the Assembly must lead the Political Commission and the plenary session, I do not lack any duty that the Constitution gives me, I comply with what the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure send me, it is a vote of the Political Commission reflected in an opinion that has the respective signatures, and to submit that opinion to the vote and that the plenary session is the last and only one that has the power to decide whether to approve or not “, argued Ponce.
The deputies of the Political Commission issued a majority opinion yesterday for the appointment as deputies of the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), lawyers Alfredo Rigoberto Méndez Peralta, Óscar Antonio Canales Cisco and David Omar Molina Zepeda.
The positions to be filled by the new officials were vacant. The names of the new deputy magistrates were taken from the list of proposals presented by the National Council of Magistracy (CNJ) and the Federation of Bar Associations of El Salvador (Fedaes) in March 2012 and May 2018.
Lawyer Méndez Peralta will complete the period until June 30, 2021 of the substitute magistrates who were elected in 2012.
AND: The National Council of Magistracy begins the interview process with 62 aspiring magistrates of the Supreme Court
Méndez Peralta will replace Ricardo Iglesias Herrera, after the Constitutional Chamber declared his election as a substitute magistrate of the SCJ by the Assembly in 2016 unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Chamber declared his nomination illegal for “the reason of his proven material connection with the political party” FMLN.
“A situation which, as it is a jurisdictional position, entails a violation of the principle of judicial independence and the principle of representative and republican democracy, recognized in articles 172 para. 3 and 85 par. 1 of the Constitution, as well as of what is provided in article 218 of the Constitution, in relation to which the civil servants are in the service of the state and not of a determined political faction ”.
While lawyers Canales Cisco and Molina Zepeda must complete the period as substitute magistrates of the SCJ until 2024, due to the fact that they will join the magistrates elected in 2015.
One of the positions that had to be filled in the highest court for the period expiring in September 2024, is the one left by the current Attorney General, Raúl Melara, who asked the Assembly to be dismissed in 2017 because he ran for the Prosecutor’s Office.
On 4 November 2020, the Political Affairs Committee decided to elect Menéndez Peralta, Canales Cisco and Jaime Edwin Martínez Ventura to their posts; The latter held the position of director of the National Academy of Public Security (ANSP), in the FMLN governments.
The opinion reached the plenary session, but was returned to the study of the Political Commission, however, in the opinions approved yesterday, the lawyer Martínez Ventura was changed to Molina Zepeda.
President Nayib Bukele spoke on his Twitter account about the new appointments.
“The outgoing deputies are trying to elect the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, before the new Legislative Assembly in which the SALVADORAN PEOPLE IN THE DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS enter. Let’s wait for the convictions of “defenders of democracy and institutionalization,” Bukele wrote.
In this regard, the ARENA deputy, René Portillo Cuadra, explained on Friday that the current legislature is responsible for appointing magistrates from the 2012 and 2015 generation whose positions were vacant and that President Bukele does not have the power to veto the decree.
“The replacements that will be invested today in the Assembly are from the third which this Assembly is to appoint. There is no unconstitutionality, the Assembly that will take office on May 1 is responsible for electing the third at that time, “said Portillo Cuadra.
The deputies of the Political Commission decided this Thursday to appoint deputy magistrates of the Supreme Court, a task they had been carrying out since 2016.
It is worth mentioning that the new legislature with a majority of elected deputies of the New Ideas party, which represents the Government, will have the key to electing the magistrates who own the SCJ invested in 2012 whose term expires on June 30 this year.
There are five magistrates who need to be replaced. They are: Doris Luz Rivas Galindo, magistrate of the president of the Criminal Chamber; José Armando Pineda Navas, magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Chamber; Ovidio Bonilla Flores, the first member of the Sala de lo Civil; José Roberto Argueta Manzano, first member of the Criminal Chamber; and Elsy Dueñas de Avilés, President of the Administrative Litigation Chamber.