(CNN Spanish) --
With 117 votes in favor, 10 against and one abstention, the National Congress of Honduras elected this Thursday the new 15 magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, in a session that culminated this Friday with the swearing in of the lawyer Rebeca Lizette Ráquel Obando as the president of that body, reported the president of the Legislative Branch, Luis Redondo.
The 117 deputies who voted in favor swore in both Obando and the other 14 elected magistrates.
According to the election and what was expressed by the deputies heads of benches of the three parties with the largest number of legislators, six magistrates are related to the Libertad y Refundación Party (Libre), five to the National Party of Honduras (PNH) and four to the Liberal of Honduras (PLH).
The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, congratulated Congress and the president of the Legislative Branch for the election of the new Supreme Court, stressing that it is "multi-party, multicultural, with a gender vision and transparency."
Congressman Tomás Zambrano, head of the PNH bench, said in the session that "a Supreme Court was chosen tailored to Honduras, and not based on political or private interests."
advertising
In the same sense, Mario Segura, head of the PLH bench, assured that with his proposal of four magistrates related to his political institute "the CSJ will have a balance in favor of the interests of Honduran justice."
Xiomara Castro celebrates her first year as president of Honduras
For his part, Rafael Sarmiento, head of the ruling party bench, pointed out that the six magistrates who proposed and who are of the same party affiliation, "will comply with the constitutional mandate of impartial justice."
In contrast, Tomás Ramírez, head of the bench of the Salvadoran Party of Honduras (PSH), a political institute that made an alliance with Libre in the last electoral process, said that his bench voted against it because "on this payroll what was given was a distribution of charges and the legal professionals sent by the Nominating Board, and who obtained the best grades when evaluated, were not chosen.”
The magistrates will be in their positions for seven years, from 2023 to 2030.
Supreme Court of Justice Xiomara Castro