opinion

Abuse of authority complaint
by Miguel Antonio Bernal

The criminal complaint filed this past September 1 against Daniel Delgado Diamante, who serves as Minister of Government and Justice, and Samuel Lewis Navarro, Salvador Rodríguez, Benjamin Colamarco Patiño, Rosario Turner Montenegro, Edwin Salamín Jaén, Carmen Gisela Vergara, Gabriel Diez, Guillermo Salazar Nicolau, María Roquebert León, Héctor Alexander and Dilio Arcia is because, abusing their authority and exceeding the functions that the constitution and laws confer upon them, they signed Decree Laws 5 and 6 of August 18, 2008, which appeared in the Gaceta Oficial volume 26107 of Tuesday, August 19, and thus they indulged in conduct described in Title X, Chapter IV of the Second Liber of the Penal Code.

Citizens Angelica Maytin Justiniani, Mauro Zúñiga Araúz, Roberto Arosemena Jaén, Rolando Villalaz Guerra and myself founded the same in the following facts:

• That on August 18 of 2008 the Cabinet Council met to discuss modifications to Article 41 of the Law 18 of 1997 and Decree Law 2 of July 8, 1999;

• That different civic, labor and business groups, as well as human rights grouips had warned the executive branch of the mortal effect that it would have on democratization and respect for fundamental guarantees;

• That the ministers of the Cabinet Council committed an omission with respect to Section 16 of Article 159 of the Constitution, in that the decree laws are incompatible with fundamental guarantees;

• That said Decree Laws also flagrantly violate the constitutional guarantees of the presumption of innocence, the right to due process of law, freedom of expression, the right to travel, the inviolability of homes, the right of assembly and the right to access to information, as set forth in Articles 22, 26, 27, 32, 37, 38 and 42 of the Constitution;

• That Article 310 of the Constitution is also openly violated by the Decree Laws, opening the way for an authoritarian regime in which the Ministry of Government and Justice assumes control, functions and powers inherent in or belonging to the chief executive, the President of the Republic;

• That Decree Laws 5 and 6 violate Inter-American conventions and other international treaties on the subject of human rights, permitting the concentration of power in the hands of a supposed subordinate of the President of the Republic and opening the way to persons who are trained as soldiers rather than police to occupy sensitive and important national security roles, under a militarist scenario;

• That the Institutional Protection Service passes from being a dependency of a specified Security and Information Committee to become a part of a National Security and Intelligence Service, subject to a National Defense and Public Security Council; and

• The ministers thus exceeded the functions that the laws and constitution give them and threaten our individual rights and fundamental guarantees.