Electoral Tribunal cannot disqualify Ricardo Martinelli

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By LatAm Reports Staff Writers

For the Master Banista Escobar, the New Business case ruling is not final, because they can still file the review appeal.

Magister and teacher Enrique Banista Escobar considered that the Electoral Tribunal would be making a mistake and violating due process if Ricardo Martinelli’s presidential candidacy disqualifies in next May’s elections.

In his Tik Tok account, and after consultations of his followers on the case, Banista Escobar pointed out that from his point of view, the former president can run, and that a disqualification at this point is illegal and unconstitutional.

In an “express” process full of irregularities and taking “by the pups” the legal times and procedures, the Judicial Body convicted Martinelli in the so-called New Business case and the Supreme Court did not admit an appeal of cassation, a day before the campaign start for the election.

According to Martinelli and his defense, the hand of the Executive Body has been behind this process, with the sole purpose of disabling it, because it is the one who marks first in the preferences of the electorate, and on the street.

For the master Banista Escobar, the New Business case ruling is not final, because after the appeal, the parties can still file the review appeal, which has not yet been filed by the RM’s defense.

He adds that article 1206 of the Judicial Code states that:“To bring the Review Appeal, the term of one year shall be granted, which shall be counted from the day the documents are recovered or the fraud is found or the declaration of falsehood has been made or the conditions on which it is to be found is fulfilled.”

This means – explains the lawyer – that the MRI defense has until February 2025 to file this review appeal.” The election is in May 2024.

He adds that if RM were to be disqualified, electoral justice must lead to a process that involves notifying parties of the disqualification claim, allowing the parties to respond, to present evidence, counter-protests and the parties to exercise their resources.

“If the judges disable him, they would be clearly violating the law and the Constitution,” the lawyer said, since the sentence is not yet final.

“The period for disqualifications and challenges expired last year, in 2023, and they now took a 2024 ruling. Catulating the time machine and traveling to 2023 to disable it is impossible, unless you give retroactive effect to a sentence, and then you are violating due process,” he reiterated.

For his part, Professor Miguel Antonio Bernal warned that the case against the presidential candidate, Ricardo Martinelli, has been “political for a long time” and said that Panama – based on international law – is obliged to issue the safe conduct, after the diplomatic asylum granted by Nicaragua. For Bernal since you are Olympicly violated due process, she leaves the legal world to fall into political revenge and that is what has happened to Martinelli.

The doctor of law said it would be blinded not to realize that the “metiche” is in the slipper to deny safe conduct and they told Cortizo: “You won’t give the safe conduct” and I want someone in the government to come and tell me that what I’m saying is not true. What happens is here they think we’re dumb.

Bernal also questioned some media “directors” who are sowing hatred and grudges to provoke confrontations.

The lawyer also stressed that after the U.S. invasion of Panama, the Endara government had to grant safe conduct to deeznable figures, torturers and murderers of the military regime, because the 1954 Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum establishes it.

Bernal is mortified by the seriousness with which some people said they say a series of incredible torches with blinking, and stressed that the way Panama addresses Martinelli’s asylum will undoubtedly be the subject of analysis for serious academies and universities, because sooner or later he will have to abide by international law to give the safe conduct.

This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in Pan America