39. The judgment ought to have examined the true motives behind the dismissal of the victim,34 and if the procedure were found to serve a punitive purpose, it could have been held to be “a de facto punitive procedure,” given its nature and the purposes it pursued, which in our view, was in fact the case for Mr. Aguinaga Aillón. 40. Legislative sanctions such as those applied in the instant case can unquestionably have effects similar to those of administrative or criminal sanctions, as they all undermine, remove, or alter individual rights. In a democratic system, no precaution must be spared when applying this type of sanction, to ensure that it is done is strict compliance with the rights of persons and following a careful study to verify the presence of unlawful conduct. 41. Rules and regulations on sanctions need to be on the books and be known or accessible before any prohibited action or omission is committed and before attempts are made to punish it.35 We believe in this case that Mr. Aguinaga Aillón, who was not removed from his post by Congress via impeachment proceedings or criminal prosecution, was dismissed without any grounds that had been established in advance and was subject to a procedure not provided for by law, and this is a clear breach of the principle of freedom from ex post facto laws under Article 9 of the American Convention. VI. CONCLUSION 42. This case enriches the Inter-American Court’s case law on judicial independence, which is a centerpiece of due process. The judgment holds that a mass, arbitrary dismissal of all the judicial personnel who sat on Ecuador’s three high courts, over the course of two weeks, absent any effective means of appeal, “constitutes an abrupt, totally unacceptable course of action” which had a negative impact on the institutional dimension of judicial independence.36. 43. Mr. Aguinaga Aillón’s dismissal from the TSE is closely intertwined with the cases of Supreme Court of Justice (Quintana Coello et al.), and Constitutional Court (Camba Campos et al.), on which this inter-American Court ruled a decade ago, but it also has a degree of specificity because of the abridgment of judicial independence on an electoral tribunal. 34 The Court has already examined, based on the context and the “misuse of power,” the real intentions of certain acts of authority and how these intentions injure rights protected by the American Convention. Mutatis mutandis, Case of Granier et al. (Radio Caracas Television) v. Venezuela. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of June 22, 2015. Series C No. 293, para. 189, and Case of San Miguel Sosa et al. v. Venezuela. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of February 8, 2018. Series C No. 348, para. 122. Judge Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, in a concurring opinion on the case of Quintana Coello, said: “[t]he 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.” Judge Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor expressed similar views on the misuse of power and the true motivations behind violations in the 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, paras. 120 to 140. 35 Cf. Case of Baena Ricardo et al. v. Panama, supra, para. 106, and Case of Maldonado Ordóñez v. Guatemala, supra, para. 89. Cf. Case of the Supreme Court of Justice (Quintana Coello et al.) v. Ecuador, supra, para. 174; Case of the Constitutional Court (Camba Campos et al.) v. Ecuador, supra, para. 211, and Case of Aguinaga Aillón v. Ecuador, supra, para. 85. 36 11