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Also in this section: Attorney General says we still have impunity here High court returns property in politically charged cases by Eric Jackson, from other media
In two decisions that came to public light on successive days, the Supreme Court has in 5-4 decisions handed back properties that were sequestered in high profile political corruption cases. In each decision the vote split had all of Martín Torrijos's appointees, plus Adán Arnulfo Arjona, casting dissenting votes.
On May 24 the nation learned of a decision to unfreeze $28.38 million worth of assets belonging to key Mireyista insider Augusto "Onassis" García and former National Bank of Panama president José Pérez Salamero. They were accused of stealing millions of dollars from the government in the 1970s process by which the Ingenio de Azuero sugar refinery was privatized. But magistrates José Troyano, Graciela Dixon, Aníbal Salas and alternates Jacinto Cárdenas (sitting in for Winston Spadafora) and Virgilio Trujillo (substituting for Alberto Cigarruista) held that 16 years ago when the Comptroller General began to investigate the multimillion-dollar losses in the case, the defendants had not been notified.
However, nowhere in Panamanian law is it written, nor in this country's jurisprudence has the precedent been set, that a Comptroller General has to notify anybody of an investigation into a financial matter under his or her control. The law does provide that when a civil lawsuit or a criminal prosecution is begun the defendants must be duly notified, and it was not disputed here that García and Pérez Salamero were properly notified when the court case began.
Magistrate Esmeralda de Troitiño, supported by her colleagues Víctor Benavides, Harley Mitchell and Adán Arjona, filed a blistering dissent, asserting that the majority decision had "no logic or argumentative coherence" and amounted to "a true legal absurdity." (She was, however, polite enough not to note the majority's true logic and consistency: her colleagues steadfastly favor corruption with impunity, which allows the kleptocrats who have long infested Panama's government to keep the proceeds of their criminal activities.)
On the following day, Panamanians woke up to read in the daily newspapers that by the same 5-decision, based on the same arguments, the high court had unfrozen the assets of Héctor Ortega, who is currently the president of the Social Security Fund board of directors, which had been frozen because Ortega had been a director and treasurer of PECC, a front company in which former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares held an interest which was improperly granted a contract with the old National Port Authority (since superseded by the Panama Maritime Authority) to maintain the nation's lighthouses and buoys, despite the conflict of interest. According to the dissenting opinion, the pro-corruption majority's ruling "affects the principles of transparency and accountability that must prevail in acts of public administration."
A week later in an interview with La Estrella, Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez was asked her opinion about the recommendations by the presidential Penal Code revision commission to increase the penalties for a number of crimes. She said that she generally liked the idea, but added that "the biggest problem in criminal justice is impunity."
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