- 82 as not to incur any of the grounds for dismissal, […] and giving the authorities charged with
applying them a large margin of discretion, [thus failing to] meet the standards of predictability
required by Article 9 of the Convention.” Regarding (ii), the absence of any relationship between
the grounds cited and the conducts penalized, the Commission argued that the decisions to dismiss
the presumed victims cited and transcribed, indistinctly, articles with contents of the most diverse
nature and with the most diverse content, without justifying the relationship between the conduct
and the norm applied. Thus, it considered that “the non-specific use of disciplinary provisions,
without clear rules referring one to the others and without providing the corresponding statement of
reasons, [resulted in] a lack of clarity as to how the specific acts were adapted to each of the
provisions; thus, constituting a violation of the principle of legality.”
253. Regarding (iii), the lack of clarity as regards the normative sources of the sanctions applied,
the Commission remarked that “grounds were used that were established in laws of different
normative levels, including codes of ethics and norms issued by international summits such as those
from the Statute of the Ibero-American Judge and the Model Ibero-American Code of Judicial
Ethics.” It also indicated that, in this case, “it ended up by imposing sanctions established in the
Judicial Service Act as a legal consequence of supposed non-compliance with ethical standards for
which, owing to their inherent nature, the text did not establish any sanction.” Regarding (iv) the
lack of predictability of the sanctions applied, it explained that, “from the point of view of the
domestic legal system, imposing a sanction on the victims for conduct established in instruments
other than the Judicial Service Act would be contrary to article 51 of the Judicial Service Act which
establishes that officials may only be removed for conduct that constitutes grounds for dismissal.”
According to the Commission, “the fact that no sanctions were established in these instruments for
the grounds invoked in the proceedings against the presumed victims (with no clear rules
concerning the referral of one legal system to another, and without this being justified by the
disciplinary authority), was contrary to the principle of legality protected by Article 9 of the
Convention”. Lastly, the Commission argued that (v) grounds were applied that were incompatible
with the principle of legality, in order to establish disciplinary sanctions against the presumed
victims, which unduly restricted the lawful exercise of other rights, such as freedom of expression
and the right of assembly.
254. The representatives argued that the principle of legality had been violated in this case
because: (i) “a series of imprecise and vague norms had been applied in the disciplinary
proceedings that prejudiced the presumed victims”; (ii) “there is no clear relationship between the
grounds that gave rise to disciplinary responsibility and the consequences that corresponded to this
[under the laws of Honduras],” and (iii) disciplinary sanctions against judges must be established by
law. They agreed that “the provisions of the disciplinary regime […] were drawn up in a vague and
imprecise way, facilitating arbitrariness and the consequent violation of the human rights of those
subject to them.” They added that the use of certain terms “entailed subjective assessments that
offered no clarity as regards the definition of the conduct to be sanctioned,” and that the wording of
some norms was “very broad and general.” Therefore, they asserted that “the grounds cited against
the victims did not respect the characteristics of clarity and precision required to comply with the
principle of legality, and this allowed for an arbitrary interpretation of their content.” Thus, “it was
not possible for the [presumed] victims to understand clearly that their protests against the
breakdown of the democratic institutional framework and in favor of the re-establishment of the
rule of law constituted expressions and manifestations of a political nature susceptible of being
sanctioned.” Furthermore, in the case of Justice Flores Lanza, they argued that the norms applied in
her proceeding were “not clear either as regards acts that [could] be considered forming part of the
practice of law, which grant[ed] broad discretion to interpret its content.”
255. They indicated that “given the diverse norms that established punishable conduct in judges,
and the omissions that existed in those norms, it was not possible for the [presumed] victims in this
case to be clear about the framework that regulated their acts, the conducts that could be