negative impact on judicial independence in its institutional aspect. (Underlining added). 89. From my perspective, the difference between this case and the case of the Constitutional Court (Camba Campos et al.) v. Ecuador 104 is that the National Congress was not authorized to dismiss the Supreme Court judges, whereas it was authorized to carry out impeachments against members of the Constitutional Tribunal. This lack of authority to sanction made it unnecessary, in principle, to declare the existence of an implicit sanction and a deviation of power in this case. For this reason my opinion in this case is concurrent and not dissenting. 90. The deviation of power implies that a state organ oversteps the boundaries or limits of its assigned task, a definition that requires it to have the power or authority to take the respective decision. In this case, Congress did not have the authority to dismiss the Supreme Court justices. And, since it did not have authority to sanction, I find it reasonable that in its Judgment the Court did not consider it appropriate to investigate in depth whether an implicit sanction existed in this case. 91. Furthermore, Congress’s declaration of its lack of jurisdiction was a factor that the Inter-American Court considered in deciding not to analyze the punitive nature of the decision, which was an element for determining whether it was possible to analyze the facts in light of Article 9 of the American Convention which, in fact, also applies to punitive actions, according to the Inter-American Court’s case law. 105 92. For the Inter-American Court it was sufficient to take into account the context in which the facts occurred, as well as the clear intention to dismiss the judges, not because their term had expired, but rather for the purpose of controlling Ecuador’s judicial power at that time. Indeed, the Judgment states that “the resolution by means of which the judges were dismissed was the result of a political alliance that 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.” 106 This allowed the InterAmerican Court to conclude that the “abuse of power” which occurred in this case was another feature of the violation of the institutional facet of judicial independence. 93. Although I share that view, I consider that regardless of the National Congress’s lack of competence to dismiss the victims from their duties as judges of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Inter-American Court should not have overlooked the State’s acknowledgement that the action of the National Congress “could have been understood as an ad-hoc procedure of a punitive nature.” 107 Accordingly, given that it clearly was an ad-hoc procedure, the Inter-American Court could have taken this circumstance into account to conduct an independent analysis of the possible violation of the principle of legality enshrined in Article 9 of the American Convention, and not only from the perspective of the institutional aspect of judicial independence. 104 Case of the Constitutional Court (Camba Campos et al.) v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs). Judgment of August 28, 2013, Series C No. 268. 105 Cf. Case of Baena Ricardo et al. (“270 Workers v. Panama”). Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of February 2, 2001. Series C No. 72, especially para. 106. 106 Para. 177 of the Judgment. 107 Para. 13 of the Judgment. 22