CHAPTER XIII. TRIBUNALS AND ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE
ARTICLE 120
The function of imparting justice emanates from the people, and is exercised in their name by the People’s Supreme Tribunal and the other Tribunals that the law institutes.
The law establishes the principal objectives of judicial activity, and regulates the organization of the tribunals, the extent of their jurisdiction and authority, their powers and the means of exercising them, the requirements to be met by judges, the method for their selection, and the causes and procedures for their recall or dismissal from the exercise of their functions.
ARTICLE 121
The tribunals constitute a system of State organs, structured with functional independence from any other, and subordinate hierarchically to the National Assembly of the People’s Power and the Council of State.
The People’s Supreme Tribunal exercises the maximum judicial authority, and its decisions in this respect are definitive.
Through its Council of Government, it exercises legislative initiative and regulatory power; it makes decisions and issues rules for mandatory compliance by all tribunals and, based on the experience of the latter, issues instructions of a mandatory nature for the establishment of a uniform judicial practice in the interpretation and application of the law.
ARTICLE 122
Judges, in their function of imparting justice, are independent, and owe obedience solely to the law.
ARTICLE 123
The sentences and other decisions of the tribunals, pronounced or enacted within the limits of their jurisdiction, must be obeyed and implemented by State agencies, economic and social institutions and citizens, by those directly affected and by those who do not have a direct interest in their implementation but have the duty to participate in it.
ARTICLE 124
For the acts of the imparting of justice, all Tribunals operate in a collegiate manner, and both professional judges and lay judges participate in them with equal rights and obligations.
The discharge of the judicial functions assigned to a lay judge, in view of its social significance, has priority over his usual working occupation.
ARTICLE 125
The tribunals render an account of the results of their work in the form and with the periodicity that the law establishes.
ARTICLE 126
The power to recall judges is incumbent on the organ that elects them.
ARTICLE 127
The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic is the State organ to which, as its fundamental objectives, the control and preservation of the legality—based on monitoring strict compliance with the Constitution, the laws, and other legal provisions on the part of State agencies, economic and social entities, and citizens, and the promotion and exercise of public penal suits—[it is responsible,] as the representative of the State.
The law determines the other objectives and functions, as well as the manner, extent, and occasion on which the Attorney General’s Office is to exercise its powers for the aforementioned purpose.
ARTICLE 128
The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic is an organic unit subordinate only to the National Assembly of the People’s Power and the Council of State.
The Attorney General of the Republic receives direct instructions from the Council of State.
The direction and regulation of the activity of the Attorney General of the Republic’s Office throughout the entire national territory corresponds to the Attorney General of the Republic.
The organs of the Attorney General’s Office are established vertically in the entire nation; they are subordinate only to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, and are independent of all local organs.
ARTICLE 129
The Attorney General of the Republic and the deputy attorneys general are elected and may be recalled by the National Assembly of the People’s Power.
ARTICLE 130
The Attorney General of the Republic renders an account of his administration to the National Assembly of People’s Power in the manner and with the periodicity that the law establishes.
