6.
In addition, regarding external independence, the Court underlined that this requires
protecting the judge from “undue interference […] by persons or organs outside the
judiciary.”5 Accordingly, guarantees against external pressures entail protecting judges from
interference by the other powers of the State but also, in general, by other social groups and
organizations of any kind including, therefore, the media. In this regard, the Statute of the
Iberoamerican Judge establishes:
Art. 3. Judicial independence and the media. The use of means of social communication with
the purpose of supplanting jurisdictional functions, imposing or influencing the content of
judicial decisions, in conditions exceeding the legitimate right to freedom of expression and
information, is considered harmful for judicial independence.6
7.
Although the foregoing supposes that a difficult balance must be achieved between freedom
of expression and the protection of judicial independence, it is essential that States do not
lose sight of the fact that the guarantees to avoid and to curb external pressures in order to
ensure the independence of judges when taking their decisions also entail a necessary proactive
action by public policies and local laws that result in real preventive protection against
communication practices that could possibly be implemented and that can be identified, above
all, by their intention of influencing judicial rulings that are still being analyzed by the courts.
8.
Lastly, I would like to emphasize that in cases concerning disciplinary proceedings, it is
essential to examine all the facts that surrounded the procedure. In this regard, I would like
to refer back to my considerations in my partially dissenting opinion in the case of Petro
Urrego v. Colombia:
In circumstances of the regional and international context, where academia, the judiciary and
social and political actors are raising their concerns in the face of possible and not so isolated
practices of interference in the dynamics of democratic debate, under the guise of legality, it
is essential that we reaffirm some of the original sources that feed and sustain a republican
state: the right to dissent, to the diversity of opinions and creeds, and to political participation
within the framework of a system of representative electoral democracy. Principles, values
and rules that, by assuming them already incorporated into institutional practice, we have
taken for granted their convenient existence, without realizing that they are slowly but
systematically diluted in the heat of practice, whether of a veiled or explicit nature or, by the
use – increasingly less concealed – of actions taken within institutional frameworks that, if not
opportunely identified and legally contained, could foster a progressive and irreparable
deterioration of the founding principles of the inter-American system and its public order,
seriously challenging the republican model of law.
[...]
On this point, it is necessary to ask ourselves whether it is possible to overcome the
inflexibility of the procedural analysis limited to the facts and evidence examined and
recognized in the Merits Report of the Commission, considering them conclusive and
therefore exclusive. In this regard, the first aspect to remember is that Article 58 of the
Court’s Rules of Procedure empowers the Court “at any stage of the proceedings,” to seek
“on its own motion any evidence it considers useful and necessary. In particular, it is able
to hear – as an alleged victim, witness, expert or in any other capacity – any person whose
statement, testimony, or opinion it deems relevant.” It is clear from this article that, as
judges, we are empowered to examine different elements that allow us to obtain verifiable
information in order to reach a just decision. In fact, the Court has carried out this practice
on several occasions, when conducting its own investigations or summoning witnesses ex
Case of Urrutia Laubreax v. Chile. Preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August
27, 2020. Series C No. 409, para. 106.
5
Iberoamerican Summit of Presidents of Supreme Courts and Tribunals of Justice. Statute of the Iberoamerican
Judge. Adopted at the VI Summit held in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canarias, Spain, on May 23, 24 and 25 2001, article
3.
6
2