Judicial pronouncements

(a) Pending No writ, action, indictment, cause, or proceeding pending in any court of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, shall abate by reason of the admission of the State of Puerto Rico into the Union, but shall proceed within such appropriate State courts as shall be established under the Constitution of the State of Puerto Rico, or shall continue in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, as the nature of the case may require. (b) Not yet pending All civil causes of action and all criminal offenses, which shall have arisen or been committed before the admission of the State, but as to which no writ, action, indictment, or proceeding shall be pending at the date of such admission, shall be subject to prosecution in the appropriate State courts or in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico in like manner, to the same extent, and with like right of appellate review, as if such State had been created and such State courts had been established prior to the accrual of such causes of action or the commission of such offenses. The admission of the State shall effect no change in the procedural or substantive laws governing causes of action and criminal offenses which shall have arisen or been committed, and any such criminal offenses as shall have been committed against the laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, shall be tried and punished by the appropriate courts of the State, and any such criminal offenses as shall have been committed against the laws of the United States shall be tried and punished in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. (c) Appeals Parties shall have the same rights of judicial review of final decisions of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico or the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in any case finally decided prior to the admission of the State of Puerto Rico into the Union, whether or not an appeal therefrom shall have been perfected prior to such admission. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States, shall have the same jurisdiction in such cases as by law provided prior to the admission of the State into the Union. Any mandate issued subsequent to the admission of the State, shall be to the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico or a court of the State, as appropriate. Parties shall have the same rights of appeal from and appellate review of all orders, judgments, and decrees of the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico and of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in any case pending at the time of admission of the State into the Union, and the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico and the Supreme Court of the United States shall have the same jurisdiction therein, as by law provided in any case arising subsequent to the admission of the State into the Union.