judicial

AG to examine pardons granted by Moscoso

WILFREDO LEE/AP PHOTO

Doubted:Officials from the Attorney General’s office will review 186 pardons granted in 2004.1051651

Attorney General Ana Matilde Gómez said that she plans to review all the cases in which presidential pardons were revoked to determine if further legal action would be appropriate.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling yesterday that revoked pardons granted by President Mireya Moscoso in August 2004.

Gómez said that the ruling seemed to be based on the fact that, according to the Constitution, presidential pardons can only be granted to people convicted of political crimes. She added that, in at least some of the cases, pardons were granted to people who not only had not yet been convicted of a crime, but who were not even the subject of any criminal investigation.

News of the decision was widely publicized internationally because it included the case involving four Cubans who were accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro while he was attending a conference in Panama.

The decision to pardon those men caused a break in diplomatic relations between Panama and Cuba.

Judge Esmeralda de Troitiño, who wrote the court's decision, said the pardons were not granted according to prescribed procedures. The decision stated that the President's Office simply issued lists of names of people who had received pardons, but did not indicate the crimes for which they were being pardoned.

The decision noted that the lists, which were issued over three days, even repeated several names among the 183 pardons that were granted.

De Troitiño noted that the Constitution gives the president three options when considering pardons, namely, a full pardon, a sentence reduction or changing the conditions of imprisonment.

The last two measures can only be applied to people convicted in criminal cases, while a pardon can only be granted to political prisoners.

“To do otherwise is to exceed the president's Constitutional powers, and it is then up to the court to order an annulment of these actions,” the judge said.

Vice President Samuel Lewis Navarro said the court's decision was a surprise to the executive branch.

President Martín Torrijos said that he had not had time to study the court's ruling, and therefore could not comment on it.