dismissal proceedings at the hands of the national Congresses, which should never be considered exempt from compliance. B) Lack of analysis of the principle of legality (Article 9 in conjunction with Article 1(1) of the American Convention) 84. While I concur with the other members of the Inter-American Court regarding all the operative paragraphs of this Judgment, in the following lines I wish to make some clarifications, in the same tone as the points discussed previously regarding the analysis of Article 8(2) of the Convention, regarding the possibility of having analyzed the possible violation of the principle of legality (Freedom from Ex Post facto Laws) provided for in Article 9 of the American Convention. 85. First, it should be noted that in this case the State of Ecuador acknowledged the violation of Article 9 of the Convention in the following terms: Ecuador acknowledges [...] principle of legality in Article 9 of the American Convention, inasmuch as the law contained no specific grounds for removing the judges from office, and that the National Congress’s resolution could have been understood as an ad-hoc proceeding of a punitive nature. (Underlining added). 86. It is true that the State’s declaration made it difficult to understand the scope of its acknowledgment of international responsibility on this point, particularly because the InterAmerican Court considered it proven that at the time of the facts, it was the Supreme Court of Justice itself which had the authority to investigate and potentially sanction any judges who might have committed disciplinary infractions. In other words, domestic law did provide grounds and procedures for the removal of judges. 87. Despite the State’s acquiescence, in its Judgment the Inter-American Court decided not to analyze whether the National Congress’s decision to terminate the Supreme Court justices on December 8, 2004 was of a punitive nature and, therefore, it did not examine the arguments presented by the Inter-American Commission and the victims’ representatives in relation to Article 9 of the Convention. In that regard, as I mentioned previously (supra para. 77), paragraph 181 of the Judgment stated that: [h]aving determined that the body that undertook the process was not competent, it is unnecessary to examine the other guarantees established in Article 8(1) of the Convention. Therefore, the Court will not examine the arguments presented by the Commission and the representatives regarding the alleged violation of other judicial guarantees. Similarly, given the effects on the separation of powers and the arbitrary nature of the action by Congress, the Court considers it unnecessary to analyze in detail the arguments of the parties as to whether or not the dismissal decision was an action of a punitive nature, and will therefore not examine the alleged effects of Article 8(2) of the Convention, as well as other aspects related to the possible scope that the principle of legality (Article 9 of the Convention) would have had in this case. 88. It should also be emphasized that the Inter-American Court concluded that the events that took place constituted an “abuse of power”. Indeed, paragraph 177 of the Judgment states that: Bearing in mind the foregoing, the resolution that called for the judges’ dismissal was the result of a political alliance, which was intended to create a Supreme Court sympathetic to the political majority existing at that time and to impede criminal proceedings against the acting president and a former president. The Court has confirmed that Congress’s resolution was not adopted by virtue of an exclusive assessment of specific factual evidence in order to ensure full compliance with the existing legislation, but that it pursued a completely different objective, related to an abuse of power. An example of this is that the summons to the session of Congress did not mention the imminent possibility of dismissing the judges […].Thus, the Court emphasizes that these elements support the affirmation that a mass and arbitrary dismissal of judges is unacceptable given its 21