Electoral Tribunal (TE) judge Alfredo Juncá said on Telemetro Reporta Metro that criticism of the decision to maintain the electoral criminal jurisdiction of former President Ricardo Martinelli -for an alleged validity of the specialty principle- is related to an "economic-political fight between various groups ”.

Juncá  without giving examples assured that there are antecedents that support the questioned decision

“What is happening seems unfortunate to me, because at a time when we have to go out to defend our democracy by starting the electoral process, what we are seeing is that there is an economic-political fight between various groups,” Juncá said on Thursday, May 5.

La Prensa said it was the first interview offered by a member of the TE plenary session, after it was learned that Juncá and Heriberto Araúz,  revoked a decision of an electoral court that, a month earlier, had lifted the jurisdiction of Martinelli, at the request of criminal judge Baloisa Marquínez, to answer for the charges of alleged money laundering in the Odebrecht and New Business cases.

The ruling has been challenged as unconstitutional before the Supreme Court and Juncá and Araúz are sued for their actions.

Attorney General Javier Caraballo, in consultation with the Supreme Court, believed that the decision of the TE violated at least five articles of the Constitution.

Judge Eduardo Valdés did not support the decision and warned in his saving vote that the ruling went into matters outside the TE.

In his interview, Juncá said that he and his colleagues had agreed not to give interviews and to go out and explain the decision to maintain the jurisdiction and recognize the principle of specialty to Martinelli. However, he said that Judge Edmara Jaén , of the Second Administrative Electoral Court, had made a mistake in suspending the jurisdiction, by  February 23, , and therefore - before an appeal from Alma Cortés, Martinelli's lawyer - it was up to the plenary session to revoke that decision.

"Yes, there was an element of denial of justice in the first instance, which was pointed out in the second and is the reason why the sentence is revoked," he said.

“If I receive a file and I am seeing that there is something wrong, how can I ignore it and decide not to comply with the law?” he said without specifying what he found "wrong" in the decision of Jaén.

“The ruling of two magistrates of the Electoral Court, far removed from the law and invasive of a jurisdictional sphere outside their competence, described as “totally inadmissible” by the magistrate who saved his vote, constitutes the breaking point of confidence in one of the few institutions that preserved a minimum of citizen credibility,” Rethinking Panama warned in a statement.

Dodging the bullet
Martinelli is accused in two open processes: the alleged use of public funds to acquire Editora Panamá América, SA (Epasa) -a case called New Business- and the payment of bribes from Odebrecht. The New Business hearing resumes on May 19; that of Odebrecht, on July 18. As the TE refuses to suspend the electoral jurisdiction, Martinelli is not required to appear.