22. Thus, on November 23, 2004, President Gutiérrez Borbúa announced the Government’s intention of proposing to Congress the reorganization of the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Supreme Court of Justice. On November 25, 2004, the National Congress, by a resolution, decided that the titular members of the Constitutional Tribunal and their alternates had been appointed illegally in 2003, and terminated the functions of all the titular members and their alternates, some of whom were impeached by Congress several days later. In addition, Congress determined the termination of the titular judges of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and their alternates, because they had been appointed without taking into account the provisions of article 209 of the Constitution. 23. On December 1, 2004, a first attempt was made to impeach some members of the Constitutional Tribunal, without obtaining the necessary votes to remove them. Accordingly, on December 5, President Gutiérrez Borbúa called for a special session of the National Congress which was held on December 8, during which the required votes were obtained to censure the former members of the Constitutional Tribunal in an impeachment proceeding. As a second item on the agenda, the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice were also terminated, unduly applying the twenty-fifth transitory provision of the 1998 Constitution, according to which officials and members of bodies appointed by the National Congress for a four-year period, as of August 10, 1998, would remain in office until January 2003. These decisions would subsequently be reversed by the National Congress, but this did not entail the reinstatement of the members who had been removed. 24. It is important to stress that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers at that time, Leandro Despouy, participated in the settlement of this political and social crisis by recommending different solutions and an evaluation of their implementation. At that time, he indicated that, in the case of the removal of the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, the right of defense and other principles of due process had been infringed.27 Regarding the removal of the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice, he indicated that the National Congress was not empowered to do this, and neither was it authorized to appoint substitutes.28 25. The importance of taking into account the context is that this is a determinant factor when deciding the institutional structure to be implemented in a specific place in order to isolate judges from undue influences.29 The factors that can have an impact on the effective exercise of judicial independence include: (a) the existence of an authoritarian regime; (b) the existence of cultural patterns that may minimize the usefulness of the jurisdiction as a mechanism to settle disputes; (c) the commitment of civil society to judicial independence, and policies that promote this, and (d) the legal tradition, either continental European or common law.30 In point of fact, in the case of Latin American in general, it has been said 27 U.N. document E/CN.4/2005/60/Add.4 of 29 March 2005, p. 3. See also U.N. documents A/60/321 of 31 August 2005 and A/HCR/11/41 of 24 March 2009. 28 Ibidem. 29 MacDonald, Roderick A. and Kong, Hoi, op. cit., p. 846. Similarly, Linares considers that the study of independence in a country requires a qualitative knowledge of the political agents and relevant issues on which power is exercised. Linares, Sebastián, “Independencia judicial: conceptualización y medición”, in Germán Burgos S. (ed.), Independencia Judicial en América Latina. ¿De quién? ¿Para qué? ¿Cómo?, ILSA, Bogotá, 1ª ed., 2003, pp. 121 and 122. 30 MacDonald, Roderick A. and Kong, Hoi, Ibidem. 7