39 133. On the other hand, the representative claimed that “the [CORJS] had a preconceived notion regarding the cleansing of the [J]udiciary.” The representative's claims were based on the statement of Beltrán Haddad, who was the rapporteur of the decision ordering the victims’ removal, in which he wrote: We must continue the fight for a true Justice system, over those judges who cling to the past. Even though we have achieved acceptable levels of cleansing over the past three years, the goals are not alike and coherent when it comes down to competitive examinations and the development of a true judicial institute […] We currently need judges who are committed to the ethical and social values of the new reality rather than to legal concepts exclusively. This forces us into a new political project for the Justice system. That is the path we need to go down. 134. However, in a section of this exact same article that was not quoted by the representative, Mr. Haddad also said that: The judges of the First Court […] were removed due to the serious inexcusable judicial error that had been previously held to be such by the [CPAM] of the [STJ], which becomes evident because of the ludicrous and contrary-to-law nature of a decision that fails to take its own consequences into consideration. We did not act arbitrarily or in the spirit of political retaliation. We have no political affiliation and the operative section of our ruling is limited to the penalty of removal only. Accordingly, it is not true that the judgment closed down a Court of Venezuela or denied access to justice to a large number of people.159 135. Considering the above, it is the Court’s view that the press article submitted by the representative is not sufficient to conclude that the actions of the rapporteur of the CORJS’s decision on removal were aimed at an “ideological cleansing,” in the terms suggested by the representative. * * * 136. Based on what was set out in the paragraphs above, the Court finds that the following facts have been established: 1) the judges of a high court of Venezuela, such as the First Court, which is in charge of reviewing the acts of the Administration, were removed from their offices and, following their removal, such court was left without judges for several months, which clearly undermines the aforementioned reviewing role; 2) the removal took place after, upon a majority vote, the First Court rendered a judgment that was the subject of serious criticism coming from the highest levels of Government, with the argument that the victims should not be judges and public statements that the judgment would not be obeyed; 3) the removal also took place after a criminal proceeding, a disciplinary investigation and the precautionary suspension of two of the victims, all due to a fact that was later on described as “common practice” by the highest court of Venezuela; 4) that same fact also led to a disproportionate search of the premises of the First Court, and 5) lastly, the removal came after the highest Government authority said all the victims were “coup-plotters.”160 137. In the opinion of this Court, these facts evidence the clear exertion of pressure on the First Court. That said, what needs to be determined in this international proceeding is whether the organ that ordered the victims’ removal from office –the CORJS- offered them sufficient guarantees to be considered an 159 Cf. newspaper article entitled “Clan de la justicia entredicha,�� [The Justice-in-question clan], written by Beltrán Haddad and published on December 3, 2003 in El Nacional (File on the Merits, Book IV, p. 1071). 160 Cf. statement made by the President of the Republic Hugo Chávez Frías on October 26, 2003 on Government Online, Aló Presidente No. 169, supra note 13.