Page 59 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

The Judiciary appointed Mrs. Yolanda Pulice de Rodríguez to replace Justice
Arturo Morgan Morales, whose role in the Tribunal had been that of a mere figurehead.
A learned man, a former Ambassador to the Vatican, Morgan Morales was not forceful
enough to cause his supposedly democratic principle to prevail. During his term at the
Tribunal, the law and the Constitution were repeatedly violated. Morgan Morales sat
silently.

Paredes decided that it would be better to allow the third justice, Rolando
Murgas Torraza, to remain at his post. A new appointment would have been up to the
House of Representatives but calling that body into session at that time could create
problems. The amendments envisaged by the Review Committee included doing away
with the House of Representative; no one knew how the representative might react if
they came together and realized that their days in office were numbered.

Thus, the organization and supervision of the first presidential elections to be
held in Panama in 16 years were entrusted to Quintero, Pulice and Murgas. What were
their personal backgrounds? What confidence did they inspire in the national
electorate? Who better than the presiding justice, Quintero, to answer this second
question and assess the objectivity of his fellow members of the Tribunal?
On May 21, 1984, La Vanguardia of Barcelona published a very candid
interview with Quintero (See exhibit 15) by its correspondent in Panama. Asked about
Pulice and Murgas’s neutrality, the justice answered: “they are fully identified with the
government’s party, the PRD”. Enough said.

The presiding justice himself, with first-hand knowledge of Pulice and
Murgas’s way of thinking, stated flatly and unequivocally that his colleagues’
impartiality was non-existent.

Their professional backgrounds confirm this assessment. Both had been
government officials since the early days of the dictatorship. Murgas known for his
Marxist leanings, was Minister of Labor Relations at the peak of Torrijos’s despotic
rule. Pulice, on the other hand, had been a traffic court judge and Director of Public
Records. Her performance at this last job was both efficient and arbitrary. She ordered
the microfilming of the records but, at the same time, barred certain opposition
attorneys from her upgraded bailiwick.

It is evident from this that the professional background of the majority justice
of the Electoral Tribunal show at best a tenuous ideological commitment to democratic
principles, the very principles they were charged with upholding and protecting.

The full burden of guaranteeing truly honest elections that would reflect the
will of the majority was thus placed upon Quintero’s shoulders. Unfortunately, the
presiding justice could not withstand the load and, as we shall presently see, his knees
buckled more than once.