Contrary to what the Legal Department established last week, about the fiscal plan affecting the operation of the Judiciary, in April, the Full Court had already given its approval to the bill.
This is stated in a letter sent on April 16th 2018 by the then president of the Supreme Court of Justice Carlos Chinchilla, to the Area Chief of the commission in charge of seeing the issue, Noemy Gutiérrez.
The Court answered a query requested by the Legislative Assembly on April 2nd, regarding the first text. Later, and before the change of legislators in May, the Treasury had to send two new versions of the fiscal plan.
The query is returned without a ruling from the Court, because the text does not refer to the organization or functioning of the Judiciary,”
was the response then indicated.
This contradicts to a large extent the resolution issued by the Legal Department last week, especially since many of the rules established in the last substitute text – already approved in the first reading – were included in the first text.
For example, one of the aspects that the Legal Department questions is in relation to budgets, which will be subject to the criteria of the Ministry of Finance. Contradictorily, the subject was already included in the first text of the law.
Another argument by the Legal Department is about salaries and the reduction of bonuses, such as OIJ exclusive dedication, risk, variation of working day, availability and bonus for police exclusivity.
However, the original text already established limits regarding incentives and salary bonuses, over which the Full Court had issued a favorable ruling. For example, we talk about the incentive to excellence that could not exceed 2.54% of a base salary. There were also limits on annuities.
The Full Court must issue a new decision on the fiscal project, which may depart from the opinion of the Legal Department. This opinion would be announced this week.