18 jurisdiction, determined that the CORJS was the one who had to consider the possible responsibility of the victims by reason of their exercising their judicial functions. 53. On the other hand, the disciplinary jurisdiction of the CORJS originates in a statute enacted by the Constitutional Assembly, and therefore ranking superior to the laws,67 established in 1999, that is to say before the proceedings were instituted against the Judges of the First Court;68 it is not an ad hoc tribunal, since it was granted competent jurisdiction in general to hear all disciplinary proceedings against judges in Venezuela, applying a common procedure; and there is no domestic rule expressly granting competent jurisdiction to hear the case in point to a body other than the CORJS. On the grounds of all the foregoing, the Court does not find a violation of the right to a hearing by a competent tribunal, previously established by law, enshrined in Article 8(1) of the Convention. 3. Impartiality of the CORJS 54. The arguments by the Commission and the representative deal jointly with the alleged lack of independence and impartiality of the CORJS when it removed Judges Apitz, Rocha, and Ruggeri from office. 55. In this regard, the Court underscores that, albeit independence and impartiality are related,69 it is also true that they each have a legal content of their own. Thus, this Court has said that one of the principal purposes of the separation of public powers is to guarantee the independence of judges.70 Such autonomous exercise must be guaranteed by the State both in its institutional aspect, that is, regarding the Judiciary as a system, as well as in connection with its individual aspect, that is to say, concerning the person of the specific judge. The purpose of such protection lies in preventing the Judicial System in general and its members in particular, from finding themselves subjected to possible undue limitations in the exercise of their functions, by bodies alien to the Judiciary or even by those judges with review or appellate functions. 56. On the other hand, impartiality demands that the judge acting in a specific dispute approach the facts of the case subjectively free of all prejudice and also offer sufficient objective guarantees to exclude any doubt the parties or the community might entertain as to his or her lack of impartiality.71 The European Court of Human Rights has explained that personal or subjective impartiality is to be presumed unless there is evidence to the contrary.72 In its turn, the so-called objective approach test consists in determining whether the judge in question offered sufficient 67 As the STJ has affirmed, it is understood that the decrees enacted by the Constitutional Assembly are of a “supraconstitutional” nature, however transitory. Cf. judgment No. 1048 of May 18, 2006, delivered by the Chamber for Constitutional Matters of the STJ. 68 Cf. article 24 of the Decree whereby the Transitional Scheme for Exercising Public Powers is established, supra note 27. 69 For instance, the Committee against Torture expressed that: “The Committee is concerned at the judiciary’s de facto dependence on the executive, which poses a major obstacle to the immediate institution of an impartial inquiry when there are substantial grounds for believing that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Cf. United Nations, Committee against Torture, Conclusions and Recommendations: Burundi, CAT/C/BDI/CO/1, para. 12. 70 Cf. Case of the Constitutional Court, supra note 60, para. 73. 71 Cf. Pullar v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 10 June 1996, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-III, § 30, and Fey v. Austria, judgment of 24 February 1993, Series to no. 255-A p. 8, § 28. 72 Cf. Daktaras v. Lithuania, no. 42095/98, § 30, ECHR 2000-X.