Panama City, Aug 13 (EFE).- Businessmen from Panama said this Sunday that the country must “rethink its participation” in the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), after this week two sons of former President Ricardo Martinelli, accused of money laundering, try to take office as substitute deputies of that body, which would mean that they would be judged by the Supreme Court of Justice and not by the ordinary Justice.
“To this we add the distortion created around the Central American Parliament and the desperate, intentional and convenient use that certain deputies make of this regional hemicycle to shield themselves from facing national and international Justice is far from the purpose for which Panama joined Parlacen”, stressed the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (Cciap) in a statement.
The Cciap, one of the largest business unions in the country, argued that due to “situations like these, the country should reconsider its participation in it,” referring to the fact that some deputies use their position in that regional body to “shun” from Justice.
The businessmen recalled that the Panamanian Constitution dictates that “there will be no privileges or privileges or discrimination based on race, birth, disability, social class, sex, religion or political ideas” and that “both parliamentary and electoral privileges were not created to avoid to Justice, nor as a letter of marque to be invoked whenever appropriate”.
“For a society to evolve and coexist in a harmonious way, there cannot be superior members with privileges that take them away from justice,” the businessmen added.
And they stressed that “we must all be equal before the law and, if the privileges and privileges are used in their favor by those who seek to evade ordinary Justice and defend their much-claimed innocence and honor accordingly, then we are called as citizens to repudiate to those who at their convenience twist the system by evading and facing the corresponding judicial processes”.
Last Friday, the sons of former President Martinelli, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli, elected substitute deputies to Parlacen in the Panamanian general elections of May 2019, tried to assume as deputies of that Central American body but the swearing in was frustrated due to the lack of a quorum. .
The Panamanian deputy to the Parlacen Dorindo Cortés explained that there was not the necessary quorum to install the session but that some of the legislators withdrew during its development, for which reason the swearing-in could not be carried out, which was endorsed by “a very reasoned report ” of the Legal Commission of the regional body.
THEY COULD BE SWORN IN THIS MONDAY, ACCORDING TO THE LOCAL PRESS
However, the parliamentary session did not close and the Panamanian parliamentary bench will meet again on Monday to swear in or not the Martinelli brothers, according to what the newspaper La Prensa published this Sunday.
The law in Panama stipulates that legislators can only be prosecuted by the plenary of the Supreme Court of Justice, whose magistrates can only be prosecuted by Parliament.
That is why it is expected that from this investiture there will be a “procedural rupture” so that the Martinelli brothers are prosecuted by the Supreme Court and not by the ordinary courts that are already preparing the Odebrecth and Blue Apple cases (Creole version of the first). , as the constitutional expert Ernesto Cedeño explained to EFE.
The Martinelli brothers are, together with their father, among the thirty accused of money laundering in the Odebrecht case in Panama, whose trial was supposed to begin this August but was postponed until September.
Both served jail time in the US after pleading guilty to participating “in bribery payments made by and under the direction of Odebrecht” for a total of $28 million, which they did “on the father’s orders,” according to their defense.
The Martinelli brothers are also accused of money laundering in the case known as Blue Apple, whose trial will begin this month. EFE
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