7
Carlos Vargas Pizarro, Agent;
Jorge Federico Lee, Deputy Agent;
Isabel Damian K., Ambassador to Costa Rica of the Republic of Panama;
Angela Alvarez Oller, Consul of the Republic of Panama in Costa Rica;
Santiago E. O’Donnell, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of the Republic
of Panama in Costa Rica;
Jorge Ruiz, Administrative Vice-President of the Institute of Hydraulic
Resources and Electrification; and
Sofía Escalante Trejos, Assistant;
for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
Hélio Bicudo, Delegate;
Manuel Velasco Clark, Lawyer;
Viviana Krsticevic, Assistant; and
Soraya Long, Assistant;
witness proposed by the State:
Antonio Ducreux Sánchez.
26.
The Court summarizes the witness’s statement, as follows:
a.
Testimony of Antonio Ducreux Sánchez
(Deputy Minister of Work and Labor Relations of the Republic of Panama,
Panamanian Ambassador to the ILO, Member of the Freedom of Association
Committee, President of the ILO Budget and Finance Committee, and
President of the Committee for Complaints against Latin America in cases that
cannot be considered by the Freedom of Association Committee)
As Panamanian Ambassador to the ILO Governing Body, it was his
responsibility to verify any complaints presented against Panama, and one of
these was the complaint filed by some of the employees dismissed from
SITIRHE and SITINTEL in 1991.
Regarding the steps taken in relation to the complaint before the ILO, the
Freedom of Association Committee examined the documentation presented by
the complainants and by the State and, towards the end of 1992,
recommended to Panama that it should adopt the measures necessary to
reinstate the employees of the two State institutions who had been dismissed
under Law 25 of 1990; that it should amend the laws that violated some
precepts of ILO Conventions 87 and 98; that it should not take actions
contrary to due process; that it should not limit the freedom of association of
any trade union and that it should restore to the workers the right to
organize, the inviolability of trade union premises and the management of
trade union quotas.
Although a judgment of the Supreme Court of Justice of Panama declared
that, under Law 25, the dismissals were not illegal, the Government that
assumed power in 1994 accepted the ILO recommendation and reinstated