39 permitted the workers to protest publicly for their genuine rights and aspirations. At that time there were persons who called the President and him urging the suspension of constitutional guarantees because of the seriousness of the events, but President Endara-Galimany and he opposed the suggestion since they wanted to continue consolidating democracy. When the draft bill of Law 25 was submitted, he was given assurances that it was a law that complied with all constitutional requirements. Said draft was submitted to the legislative body, which is totally independent from the executive. The judgment of the Supreme Court that declared the “paragraph” of Article 2 of Law 25 unconstitutional was strictly complied with. For purposes of the dismissals of 270 persons in compliance with Law 25, the heads of the State’s autonomous and semi-autonomous institutions were empowered to make the evaluations and determine who should be dismissed. The power to hire freely or to dismiss freely belonged to each one of the directors of those institutions. In face of the workers’ actions, all steps were taken within the framework of the law and the dismissed staff members enjoyed all guarantees required to have access to the courts. He does not remember any dismissals before the entering into force of Law 25 for acts related to the demonstration and the work stoppage of December 4 and 5, 1990. He advocates freedom of expression so long as it is done with seriousness and discipline, and it does not affect the rights of other third parties. He expressed his appreciation for the impartiality of the Court. j. Statement of Carlos Lucas López-Tejada, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Panama from December 1990 to 1994 He was appointed Justice during the first days of January 1990, shortly after the fall of general Noriega’s regime. He was designated Chief Justice at the first session of the Supreme Court. In December 1990 said Court was comprised of nine Justices. To date, the Constitutional Section consists of the full Supreme Court; it is comprised of all Justices of the different sections, that is, the civil, the administrative conflicts, and the penal sections, and it is responsible for the constitutional jurisdictional control as the guardian of the Constitution, through the remedies of unconstitutionality and of warning of unconstitutionality in a given proceeding, and as a court of appeals, or pertinent court for the protection of constitutional guarantees, although the latter two may be also heard by the Circuit judges, by the Superior Court, and by the Court of Appeals, as the case may be. The first unconstitutionality action was filed some days after the formulation and promulgation of Law 25. Two more were filed later. The complaints were accumulated and a substantiating Justice was designated. Initially it was doctor Rodrigo Molina, and later doctor César Quintero. The complaint was processed regularly, but efforts were made to give it priority since it involved many persons. As compared to other unconstitutionality complaints, this action was dealt with expeditiously and quickly, taking into account that the judgment was handed down in May, 1991. According to the judgment handed down on this occasion, Law 25 was not unconstitutional, although the “paragraph” of Article 2, which empowered the Cabinet Council to make a certain qualification was. In this case, the Supreme Court found that the “paragraph” violated mainly section 2 of Article 203 of the Constitution, which empowered the Third Administrative Conflicts Section of the Supreme Court to examine the legality of acts. Two aspects of this “paragraph” were unconstitutional: the first one was that the Cabinet Council was given regulatory power when in fact, in the Executive Branch such power belongs to the President and the pertinent Minister; the second one was that it empowered the Third Section of the Supreme Court to act as an administrative conflicts court. When the full