Page 79 - Anatomy-of-a-Fraud

“… the petition [i.e., the challenge] was admitted on May 9 and
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dismissed on the 16 , SEVEN DAYS later. Accepting for the sake of
argument that the justices were correct in invoking this technicality [the
constituent’s presence] taken out of statutory law and wielding it as a
supplemental rule, I ask the justices –and particularly those who have

been college professors [Quintero and Murgas] to explains the reasons
why they did not apply this other supplemental rule:

Article 426. The court hearing the case sha whenever a power of

attorney be filed with it, determine whether it was granted in accordance
with the legal requirements and shall return it if any were not met.
Moreover, once a power of attorney has been admitted, it shall so notify

the opposing party and should said opposing party not object to it within
24 hours on the grounds that it does not meet the requirements set forth
in the previous articles, it may not later, move to declare the proceedings
null and void on the grounds of insufficient representation. (Judicial

Code)”.

In plain language, this meant that 24 hours after the admission of the
challenge, it could not be dismissed for the reasons alleged by the Tribunal. It should
be remembered, however, that neither this regime nor the officials who have obediently
served it are known for their respect for law and reason. The only law that has been
uninterruptedly enforced in Panama since 1968 is the law of the jungle, and that was
the law applied in this case.

A few comments on the ruling written by Murgas dismissing the challenge,
close this section.

With manifest sarcasm, Murgas ratifies the excuse of the constituent’s
absence, despite the fact –previously documented– that this requirement had not been
enforced by the Electoral Tribunal in earlier occasions and that, generally, speaking, it
is not observed under statutory law, from which it had been borrowed as a supplemental
rule. In this regard, La Prensa editorialized on May 19: “Summum ius, summum
iniuria, the Romans used to say in similar cases in which strict observance of the law
is used as an excuse to bring about results contrary to law and justice”. In addition,
Murgas’s writ does not address the essential points of the motion to reconsider, thus
confirming the “facilitator” role played by the pro-government justices of the Electoral
Tribunal in the fraud.

If an in-depth investigation of the Circuit 4-4 had been conducted in
accordance with the spirit of the law and as publicly recommended by the Electoral
Tribunal presiding justice, it would have been established that the circuit returns
board’s tally sheet had been stolen and subsequently forged; that the alleged signatures