Affidavit reveals why several high Court Justices lost bench

Santo Domingo. – The National Magistrate Council (CNM) dismissed four Supreme Court justices who weren’t confirmed despite having the age to remain on the bench, on alleged lack of transparency and independence.

Council affidavit 24 issued December 21 states that justice Ana Rosa Bergés Dreyfous wasn’t confirmed because she allegedly “didn’t proceed with impartiality and independence,” and that “she received serious influences from a person outside the Judicial Branch.”

Justice Eglys Margarita Esmurdoc (wife of opposition PRD party leader Hernani Salazar) wasn’t confirmed as Supreme Court Justice because “she has bonds of a personal character that make the impartial and independent exercise of her functions difficult.”

Also not confirmed was justice Julio Aníbal Suárez Dubernay because “he wasn’t always in adhere with the criteria of impartiality and independence” which the Judicial Branch regulation demands.

Enilda Reyes Perez was also left out because “during the time of exercise as Supreme Court judge she demonstrated that her experience didn’t reflect the required performance to allow the continuity in the exercise of her functions, which was show in her individual evaluation performance,” the CNM affidavit said.

Those Justices left out of the new high Court, excluding Reyes Perez, were in fact those who voted to declare the US$130.0 million loan with the company Sun Land Unconstitutional, since it was taken without Congress’ approval.

In that occasion the justices ruled that the challenge was inadmissible on the quality of the parts which submitted it, despite that in one of its paragraphs, admits that the Constitution was violated.