A ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of Panama that declared “not guilty” a deputy of the National Assembly accused of alleged sexual crimes, has been the subject of protests since Saturday in the Panamanian capital.
Arquesio Arias, deputy of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, currently in power, was cleared of guilt early Saturday morning when the Oral Trial Court, made up of the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice, exonerated him of the charges of aggravated rape and Libidinous acts against two women, one of them a minor, allegedly committed in 2018, and for which the deputy was separated from the position and as a precautionary measure of domiciliary deposit since 2019.
The popular claim is due to the fact that in three of the charges, the nine magistrates who make up the plenary session declared him not guilty, but in the case of alleged libidinous acts against the minor, five of the nine magistrates voted in favor of her guilt .
However, Panamanian law establishes that for a deputy to be found guilty, a qualified majority vote of two thirds must take place, that is, six votes or more to declare his sentence.
While some civil society groups point out alleged impunity and exchange of favors between magistrates and deputies because by law they investigate each other, the Judicial Branch reported in a statement that the Trial Court based its decision on that the crimes could not be proven and that there were serious inconsistencies related to the accusation.
At all times, Deputy Arquesio Arias, who is an indigenous person and a doctor by profession, has kept silent; However, his lawyer Ángel Álvarez assures that the accusations are due to rivalries between adversaries in the Guna Yala region, where he was elected, to affect him politically.