68. The proven facts reveal a violation on many fronts of the judicial independence protected by the American Convention, as it is enhanced by the Inter-American Democratic Charter; especially as regards its aspect of the institutional independence of the members of the Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador. And also the institutional independence of the Constitutional Tribunal, in its capacity as guarantor of the country’s democratic system, based on the legal and constitutional framework of Ecuador in force when the judges terminated by the National Congress were originally appointed. In this regard, these aspects should have been related more strongly to the inter-American case law on judicial independence that has been mentioned previously in this opinion and, in this regard, an emphatic reprimand should have been issued owing to the flagrant abuse of political power that occurred in this case against the Constitutional Tribunal and its independence. 69. Indeed, at the session of November 25, 2004, during which resolution No. R-0252005 was approved, which terminated the members of the Constitutional Tribunal because of supposed problems in the way in which they had been appointed, Congress failed to cite any norm as legal grounds for declaring the termination and, in the instant case, nor did the State indicate the norm on which the said decision was based. Even though the “single list” voting mechanism was not expressly established in Ecuador’s domestic laws, no legislative, administrative or judicial actions were filed to contest that mechanism following the appointment of the judges on March 19, 2003. 70. Thus, a serious lack of logical congruence by Congress can be seen, because it waited more than 18 months to rectify the supposed irregularity, the explanation for which was eminently political, given the crisis of the powers of the State at the exact moment in which the dismissal of both the Constitutional Tribunal and the other high courts of the State occurred. Even though Congress could have impeached the judges – as it finally did, with the irregularities that will be emphasized below in this opinion – no legal grounds can be noted that empowered Congress to review and repeat the first vote, and then to decide – as it ended up doing – the approval of the motion of censure with the consequent immediate removal from office of the judges.85 71. The instant case reveals the conditions in which the termination and the impeachment of the members of the Constitutional Tribunal took place, violating the stability of their posts, in the context of external pressures associated with the infringement of the institutional and personal aspects of judicial independence. The proven facts, which reflect an authentic political assault and attack on the basic principles of the democratic rule of law postulated by the inter-American human rights system, reveals the need to emphasize the limits that this international system imposes, not only with regard to the personal aspect of judicial independence, but also with regard to institutional judicial independence, in favor of the eight victims as a group, who composed the Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador, illegally terminated and tried by the National Congress. VII. THE SUBSTANTIALLY JURISDICTIONAL NATURE OF IMPEACHMENT AND THE VIOLATIONS OF DIFFERENT RIGHTS OF DUE PROCESS UNDER THE CONVENTION (ART. 8), POLTICAL RIGHTS (ART. 23) AND JUDICAL PROTECTION (ART. 25) A) Substantially jurisdictional nature of impeachment 85 According to article 130(9) of the 1998 Constitution of Ecuador. 17