The President of the Jury of the National Elections denounces the repeated political attacks

He National Election Jury (JNE) is in sight of Congress of the Republic. For this reason, Jorge Luis Salas Arenas, head of this institution, again denounced that “they have been attacked, in particular their president, for any reason” in recent days. Despite this, he added that they will continue to defend their autonomy.

“The jury defends its autonomy and independence when it is alleged that there has been abusive hiring. (…) There is an intention to subject the members of the electoral bodies to political and not legal decisions”, he indicated during an activity during which an agreement was signed between the ETC and the Public Procurement Control Agency.

Salas Arenas added that this type of pressure on electoral bodies has already been warned by human rights watchdogs such as the Inter-American Court where to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

“A situation that the Inter-American Court as well as the IACHR have already met in previous cases in other countries. And they underlined the absolute inconvenience that the judicial bodies and, of course, also the electoral bodies, are subject to such criteria,” he noted.

The magistrate stressed that his institution “defends itself and will continue to defend itself accordingly, with the weapons given to it by law and democracy”. In this sense, he stressed that there is an “enormous risk that has the objective of doubling independence in order to obtain political results at all costs”.

The criticisms of Salas Arenas are due to the fact that in the Parliament Various initiatives have been presented to reform Article 99 of the Political Constitution, the purpose of which is to incorporate the members of the JNE, the head of the National Office for Electoral Processes (ONPE) and the head of National register of identification and civil status (Reniec) as liable to dismissal.

Currently, the aforementioned Magna Carta article says the following: “To accuse before Parliament: to the President of the Republicto representatives of Congress, ministers of state, to members of the Constitutional Court; to the members of the National Council of the Judiciary (now National Council of Justice)members of the Supreme Court, supreme prosecutors, defender of the peoplethere you go General Controllerfor breach of the Constitution and for any crime committed in the exercise of their functions and up to five years after they have ceased to do so.

This function would correspond to the Standing committeewhere it is made up of representatives of board of directors, spokespersons and members of the various parliamentary formations. This body would only accuse, according to the magistrate of the TC Gustavo Gutierrez Ticseconstitutionally denounce the president of the JNE, but not the other members.

It is not the first time that Jorge Luis Salas Arenas has been attacked from Congress. In January, Roselli Amuruz (advanced country) presented a legislative initiative so that the current head of the JNE culminates with his management in April this year. The measure also reaches the head of the ONPE.

“The President of the ETC and the head of ONPE They complete their mandate in April 2023. The deadlines set respectively in Articles 180 and 182 of the Constitution do not apply to them, by exception. State Constitution“, we read in the document.

A few weeks ago, Salas Arenas denounced having been threatened with death by a user on social networks.

The head of the JNE sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor’s Office indicating that, from the address @siniestro_8814, the user called “clandestine extreme right” replied to a tweet from the official account of the JNE with the following sentence: “Get out, Salas Arenas…get off, BRITTERED…you’ve been warned.” The message was attached to a close-up photo of a ball.