access this, neither legal certainty nor procedural balance is affected, because it can be located immediately by the Court and by the other parties.20 35. Based on the above, the Court admits the above-mentioned expert opinions to the extent that they are in keeping with the purpose that was defined, and will assess them in conjunction with the rest of the body of evidence, taking into account the observations of the State and pursuant to the rules of sound judicial discretion.21 36. The Commission requested “the transfer of the pertinent parts of the expert opinion of expert witness Param Cumaraswamy,” whose testimony was proposed in the case of Quintana Coello et al. v. Ecuador. This expert opinion refers to the standards for judicial independence in international law. Neither the State nor the representatives presented observations on this request. The Court incorporates this expert opinion as relevant to this case. 37. Regarding the expert opinion provided by Leandro Despouy, the State argued that “his expert opinion relate[d] to the facts of the case, and to the reports that the expert witness had prepared when he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, and not on the purpose of the expert opinion approved by the […] Court.” It also argued that the fact that Mr. Despouy had been a “United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers” would mean that he had “prior juridical positions and criteria that would make it difficult for him to provide an impartial, objective and neutral expert opinion.” 38. In this regard, the Court observes that the Ecuadorian State had already presented this argument concerning the expert opinion of Mr. Despouy when it challenged his expert opinion offered by the Commission for the public hearing. On this point, in the Order of the President of the Court of February 15, 2013 (supra para. 7), the latter ruled in this regard. The Court recalls that, in the said Order, the President indicated that “the State did not present evidence, beyond the references to the mandate and report of the Special Rapporteur, that the latter had intervened in any way in the proceedings analyzed in this case, either at the domestic level or during the processing of the case before the interAmerican system, in a way that could raise any doubt as regard the obligation of objectivity of an expert witness before this Court. Contrary to the State’s assertion, it is precisely his knowledge of the situation in Ecuador in 2005, as United Nations Special Rapporteur, that would be an element that would allow it to be inferred prima facie that he had a better understanding of the situation in his eventual task as an expert witness in this case.”22 VII PROVEN FACTS 39. In this chapter on proven facts the Court will analyze: (i) the context of the facts that occurred; (ii) the termination of the members of the Constitutional Tribunal; (iii) the facts related to the impeachments of some of the members; (iv) the decision of the new 20 Cf. Case of Escué Zapata v. Colombia. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of July 4, 2007. Series C No. 165, para. 26, and Case of the Santo Domingo Massacre v. Colombia. Preliminary objections, merits and reparations. Judgment of November 30, 2012 Series C No. 259, para. 44. 21 Cf. Case of Loayza Tamayo v. Peru. Merits, para. 43, and Case of Mohamed v. Argentina. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 23, 2012 Series C No. 255, para. 37. 22 Order of the President of the Court of February 15, 2013, considering paragraph 16. 14