20 60. Judge Rocha filed a challenge against the members of the CORJS on the same day the order declaring him removed from office was delivered,76 but before notice thereof was served.77 On the next day, Judge Apitz requested the members of the CORJS to decline their jurisdiction.78 Such request was also filed before notice of the order of removal from office was served. There is nothing on record to the effect that Judge Ruggeri filed any challenge or any request for jurisdiction to be declined. 61. In the Judgment ordering him removed from office no express answer was given to the challenge filed by Judge Rocha, but it was reaffirmed that members of the Commission on the Operation and Restructuring of the Judicial System “shall not be subject to challenge, but they shall decline their jurisdiction in the cases provided in Article 36 of the Administrative Procedure Organic Law.”79 There is nothing on record to the effect that the request for jurisdiction to be declined filed by Mr. Apitz was ever answered. 62. It is pertinent that the Court determine whether the fact that the judges of the CORJS who removed the victims from office could not be challenged violated the rights of the latter to a hearing by an impartial tribunal. 63. In this regard, the Tribunal considers that the institution affording the right to challenge judges has a twofold purpose; on one hand, it works as a guarantee for the parties to the proceedings, and on the other hand, it aims at providing credibility to the role performed by the Jurisdiction. Indeed, through challenging, the parties are given the right to move for the exclusion of a judge when, regardless of the personal conduct observed by the questioned judge, there are facts that can be proven or elements of conviction that may not warrant elimination of grounds for misgivings or legitimate suspicions of partiality regarding his person, thus preventing his decision from being seen as made by reasons alien to the Law and, therefore, the operation of the Judicial System to appear distorted. Challenging should not necessarily be seen as putting on trial the moral rectitude of the challenged official, but rather as a tool to build trust in those turning to the State in quest for action by bodies that are and appear to be impartial. 64. In such sense, challenging is a procedural means of protecting the right to a hearing by an impartial body, rather than an element making up or defining such right. In other words, judges that cannot be challenged are not necessarily partial, nor will they necessarily act in a partial manner, just the same as judges that can be challenged are not necessarily impartial, nor will they necessarily act in an impartial manner. 65. As regards declination of jurisdiction, the Court deems that even when it is allowed under domestic law, it is not enough to guarantee impartiality in the tribunal, for it has not been shown that the parties have any remedy to question the judge that must decline jurisdiction and does not. 77 The order declaring the judges of the First Court were removed from office was delivered on October 30, 2003 (supra note 49), but notice thereof was served upon the judges on November 4, 2003. Cf. Official Letters 1088 and 1087 of November 3, 2003 issued by the Rectoría Civil de la Circunscripción Judicial del Área Metropolitana de Caracas [The Caracas Metropolitan Area Judicial District Chief Civil Judge] reporting on the results of notification served upon Messrs. Rocha and Apitz (Evidence file, Book VIII, Annex Ñ, pp. 2703 and 2712). 78 Cf. brief of October 31, 2003, filed by Mr. Apitz with the CORJS (File of Annexes to the Answer to the Application, Book VIII, Annex Ñ, pp. 2693 to 2698). 79 Cf. order of October 30, 2003, delivered by the CORJS, supra note 49, p. 1081.