meet the same requirements as the justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, and shall be subject to the same prohibitions.”200 Expert witness Ávila also indicated that, although article 39 of the Law on the Organization of the Judicial Function established the requirements for justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, this article did “not include, in any case, an explicit effect for the case in which a member of the [Constitutional Tribunal] was affected by one of the grounds for not meeting a requirement, ineptitude, incapacity or prohibition.”201 Therefore, according to expert witness Ávila Linzán, the National Congress did not have constitutional powers “to terminate” the members of the Constitutional Tribunal unless they used impeachment.202 177. In addition, article 202 of the 1998 Constitution did not refer to presumed formal errors in the appointment. Even though article 202 of the Constitution established the “termination” on “the grounds determined by the Constitution and the law,”203 this article only applied to justices of the Supreme Court of Justice. 178. Moreover, neither the resolution that terminated the members of the Constitutional Tribunal nor the arguments presented by the State show clearly that Congress was competent to review the legality of the appointment of the judges. From the laws provided, the Court observes that Congress could try judges by means of impeachment proceedings, but these laws do not establish the legal grounds that empowered Congress to review the vote and to decide, should the vote have been conducted illegally, that the judges should be removed from office. The Court also underscores that the review of the presumed irregularity in the appointment of the judges was implemented more than a year and a half after their appointment. There is no reasonable explanation to help understand why Congress had allowed the Constitutional Tribunal to exercise its functions “illegally” for more than 18 months, if that was the case. The supposed intention to rectify the error in the appointment of the judges emerged precisely at a time of political crisis among the powers of the State, a context in which the termination of all the justices of the Supreme Court of Justice also occurred (supra para. 55). 179. In this regard, the Court considers that allowing the possibility of reversing an appointment of the highest court on constitutional matters to subsist for more than 18 months – in other words, that this possibility of examining and reversing supposed formal errors in an appointment of such importance does not expire after a reasonable time – affects the guarantee of stability in office and can permit the emergence of external pressures, aspects directly related to judicial independence (infra para. 188). In circumstances such as those of the instant case, this would mean legitimating the permanence of the members of a high court in legal uncertainty regarding the legality of their appointment, and could result in a constant threat of the possibility of being removed from their functions at any time, an aspect that, in certain political contexts, increases the risk of undue external pressure on the exercise of the judicial function. 180. Based on the foregoing, the Court concludes that even though the members of Congress stated that the judges were being terminated owing to an irregularity in the vote by which they were elected, the truth is that the State did not explain the legal grounds that established that the vote could not be held by the so-called “single-list” mechanism. This 200 Affidavit prepared by expert witness Ávila Linzán on March 13, 2013 (merits file, tome III, folio 1402). 201 Affidavit prepared by expert witness Ávila Linzán (merits file, tome III, folio 1403). 202 Cf. Affidavit prepared by the expert witness Ávila Linzán (merits file, tome III, folios 1405 and 1406). 203 Cf. Article 202 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador of August 11, 1998 (file of annexes to the answering brief, tome I, folio 3694). 52