3 III. THE PARTIES’ POSITIONS A. The petitioners 10. The petitioners alleged that they were unconstitutionally and arbitrarily removed from their positions as judges (vocales magistrados) of the Constitutional Court, to which they were legitimately elected by the National Congress in 2003 for a period of four years. 11. In that regard, they indicated that Article 275 of the Constitution establishes the Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional) as the highest-level authority in charge of ensuring the supremacy and efficacy of the constitutional provisions, the highest-level body for constitutional review and independent with respect to the other branches of government, and that its regulation is established in the Organic Law on Constitutional Review. 12. The petitioners argued that pursuant to the constitutional and statutory provisions in force, the National Congress, at its session of January 9, 2003, designated Enrique Herrería Bonnet and Oswaldo Cevallos Bueno as the judges for the legislature on the Constitutional Court for the 2003-2007 period. On March 19, 2003, the legislature designated the other members of the Constitutional Court from the shortlists whose members are drawn from the sectors determined in the Constitution. The petitioners indicated, moreover, that all the members assumed office before the President of the National Congress on March 24, 2003. 13. The petitioners alleged that the only legal means for removing a member of the Constitutional Court before the end of his or her term is impeachment, which is a power of the National Congress that can only be initiated upon formal request of at least one-fourth of the members of the legislature. 14. The petitioners indicated that on November 9, 2004, an attempted application for the impeachment of the President of the Republic, Col. Lucio Gutiérrez, for the alleged crime of embezzlement, was thwarted, leading to an “irregular process of restructuring several agencies of the State.” In that context, on November 24, 2004, the President of the Republic announced the Executive’s intent to promote, in the Congress, a reorganization of the Supreme Court of Justice in order to “depoliticize” it. The petitioners alleged that in the face of the government threat the Constitutional Court published a communiqué in the national press anticipating that the removal of the judges of that Court by a mere resolution would constitute a violation of the rule of law. 15. According to the petitioners, on November 24, 2004, the majority of Congress, supportive of the Government, asked the President of the Congress to amend the previously adopted Order of Business for legislative debate in order to consider a draft resolution that declares the removal (cesación en funciones) of the members of the Constitutional Court. While that request was rejected by the President of the Congress, on that same day six full judges of the Constitutional Court, Oswaldo Cevallos Bueno, Miguel Camba Campos, Luis Rojas Bajaña, Jaime Nogales Izurrieta, René De la Torre, and Simón Zabala Guzmán, and alternate to the President of the Court, Manuel Jaramillo Córdova, were called to appear for impeachment on December 1. 16. The petitioners argued that the call for impeachment was based on the judges having voted in favor of resolutions adverse to the interests of certain political parties represented in Congress, that those cases had been resolved more than a year prior to the call, and that as a result the Congress had lost the power to impeach the judges on those grounds.