Dismissal of Honduran Supreme Court judges an attack on democracy – UN expert

[Judi Lynn]

Dismissal of Honduran Supreme Court judges an attack on democracy – UN expert

29 January 2013 – A United Nations independent expert today expressed grave concern over the decision by the Honduran Congress to dismiss four Supreme Court judges, and called on the Government to reconsider its decision.

“The principle of stability and the irremovable status of judges are a fundamental guarantee to protect the independence of judicial power, and this can only be disrupted under exceptional circumstances,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul. “The dismissal of the four judges represents a grave attack against Honduras’ democracy.”

According to reports, on 12 December the Honduran Congress voted to dismiss four Supreme Court justices – José Antonio Gutiérrez Navas, Gustavo Enrique Bustillo Palma, José Francisco Ruiz Gaekel and Rosalinda Cruz Sequeira – after they rejected a plan by President Porfirio Lobo to reform the national police. The judges have appealed the decision.

“Judges can only be dismissed for inappropriate conduct or incompetence and only after an established procedure that guarantees a fair judgment and allows for a revision of the decision,” Ms. Knaul said, adding that it is unacceptable for Congress to dismiss them as a reprisal mechanism.

More:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44024&Cr=&Cr1=

[Peace Patriot]

1. What should we expect from a U.S.-backed coup government?

Lawlessness. And also, murder and mayhem--now endemic in Honduras, with hundreds of political leftists, trade union leaders, journalists and others, murdered, imprisoned, tortured, terrorized.

That's what U.S. interference DOES. Chaos.

It is particularly ironic that the same coup government, whose lying propaganda about "the constitution" (run by a P.R firm in Washington DC) was used to justify throwing out the ELECTED president (Mel Zelaya) and violating HIS constitutional rights (by forcibly, at gunpoint, throwing him out of his own country, which the Honduran constitution FORBIDS), should turn around and try to throw out supreme court justices as well, also in violation of the Honduran constitution, on yet another caprice--they don't like their rulings.

This lawless legislature is as bad as our own--is a mirror to our own. Same ruthless panderers to transglobal corporate monsters and war profiteers; same lickers of the boots of the 1%.

That's what U.S. interference SEEKS. Rule by the rich. Laws of, by and for the rich.

It is disgusting.