QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A leading international human rights group accused Ecuador’s government Wednesday of severely undermining the independence of the country’s judiciary through the removal and naming of hundreds of judges following a 2011 referendum that endorsed reform.

Human Rights Watch’s Americas director, Jose Miguel Vivanco, said in a letter to the president of the country’s judicial council that that its naming of all 21 members of Ecuador’s highest court, for example, was done “through mechanisms that lack the objectivity and transparency” set by international conventions to which Ecuador is a party.