( Spanish) — The Constitutional Court of Ecuador issued this Thursday a ruling on the qualification of constitutional reforms that was requested by President Guillermo Lasso in his referendum proposal.
In the opinion, the body admits that changes to the Constitution be consulted through the “amendment” procedure for six of the eight questions raised by Lasso in his proposal. For the other two questions, the Court indicates that there is only room for a “partial reform” because they alter constitutive elements of the Ecuadorian State.
Questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 that were admitted so that citizens can be consulted through a constitutional amendment have to do with the extradition of Ecuadorians who have committed transnational crimes, the autonomy of the Prosecutor’s Office to evaluate their personnel, the reduction in the number of assembly members, the increase in the number of members of political parties, the incorporation of a water protection system and compensation to communities for supporting environmental initiatives.
The two questions (1 and 6) that were left out of the possibility of consulting them through constitutional amendments proposed including the support of the Armed Forces to the National Police to fight against organized crime and the elimination of the power to designate authorities that it has the Citizen Participation Council.
According to the Court, the separation of the functions of the Armed Forces and the National Police “is of such magnitude that the minimum intervention of the Armed Forces, outside of its functions of defense of sovereignty, occurs in specific contexts and with a mechanism special. This change affects the defining functions of the Armed Forces, as guarantors of the sovereignty of the State”, specifies the opinion.
While in the question that raises that the National Assembly, with incidence of the Executive power, replace the Citizen Participation Council in the designation of control authorities, the Court indicates that the participation of the Assembly would be minimal and that would generate an imbalance.
“In the terms proposed in this request, the concentration of the power of the Executive during the selection process of at least 9 control authorities of the powers of the State and the incidence in the other functions of the State, alters the characteristic of a republican State, it contravenes the democratic principle of separation of powers and affects the system of checks and balances, promoting the presidential system”, points out the text of the opinion.
The Government’s reaction
The Ministry of Communication informed that the legal team of the Presidency of the Republic is reviewing the ruling of the Constitutional Court and that it will analyze the next actions to be taken. “The Consultation is a democratic and citizen process, which will allow the country’s main concerns and demands to be resolved,” the statement said.
