28 law was passed on December 14, and was published on the Official gazette on December 17, but most of the dismissals had already been made by the 14th. In Panama, the authority with competence to investigate offences against the constitutional order, such as rebellion, sedition or any other offence against the security of the State, was the Prosecutorial Agency, according to the Constitution and the law. However, a type of special jurisdiction for this case was created pursuant to Law 25, and it was determined in the “paragraph” of Article 2 of said law, that the Cabinet Council would be the competent authority to determine when the acts of public servants became attempts against democracy and the constitutional order, which was equivalent to offences for whose investigation the Prosecutorial Agency was responsible. Later, the Supreme Court declared the “paragraph” of Article 2 of Law 25 unconstitutional. The Prosecutorial Agency, under his authority, started a penal summary proceeding the same day, December 5, in order to investigate whether offences had been committed and, in such cases, to determine who was responsible. Colonel Eduardo Herrera-Hassán and some other former members of the military, and even some civilians that had no relationship with the labour union leadership were placed on a list of individuals regarded liable. The investigation of labour union leaders was never ordered within the penal proceedings initiated, which were later referred to the judicial branch. Elements such as the coincidence between the movement of colonel Herrera-Hassán and the workers’ movement were neither examined nor taken into consideration in the investigation of the office of the Attorney General, nor was the fact that colonel Herrera-Hassán would have informed a high State official that he was going to meet with workers after having escaped from the prison. The simple fact that colonel Eduardo Herrera-Hassán would have had the intention to meet with some labour union leaders did not make them a part of the acts that he carried out before and after his escape on December 4, 1990. In a note of the office of the Attorney General of November 8, 1991, addressed to the Chairperson of the Labour and Social Well Being Committee of the Legislative Assembly, it was stated that Law 25 of November 14, 1990, violated agreements 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO); that there was no evidence, in the investigation initiated, that groups of State workers would have participated in the attempted coup d’état, and that the rules of international law were above the Constitution. Said letter was characterised as the opinion of the Attorney General of the Nation. Law 25 changed the status of the workers who were under the Labour Code, by bringing them under the legal system of administrative law. The remedies filed before the labour jurisdiction were rejected and so were the administrative conflicts remedies. International human rights law has not been taken into account either by the Executive Branch, or by the courts. In its fourth article, the Constitution establishes that Panama abides by the rules of international law. The Supreme Court has established in reiterated jurisprudence that Article eight of the American Convention is a part of the constitutionality block, and that paragraph one of said Article establishes the right of all persons to be heard before being sanctioned, that is, before their penal, civil, and fiscal, obligations, among others, are established. It is evident that Law 25 violated Article 8 of the American Convention, at least with reference to its first paragraph. The constitutionality block was in existence since long before the Panamanian Supreme Court recognised it. When, in establishing its position in its judgment concerning the claims of the workers dismissed pursuant to Law 25, the Supreme Court expressed that the American Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were only an overlap of the precepts of the Constitution and that they had the value of a law and lacked constitutional hierarchy, the office of the Attorney General of the Nation felt that the purpose of the judgment was to constitutionalise something that was not