Amendment would limit use of protective action

Within the draft amendments submitted by the Alianza PAIS (AP) bloc of the National Assembly, to the Constitutional Court (CC), is intended to increase a subsection in Article 88 of the Constitution, in order to regulate the cases in which people may “abuse” of the protective action.

The Jurisdictional Warranties Law states that the protective action can occur when there is a “violation of a constitutional right; act or omission by a public authority or a particular (…); and, the absence of other effective legal defense mechanism to protect the rights violated.”

Ruling party Assemblyman Fausto Cayambe said that the purpose of the amendment is raise the regulation of the protective action to a Constitutional nature, in order to prevent an ‘unnaturalness.’ “We want to forewarn this warranty from becoming defaced against abuse and use for all acts. Its essence is to protect the rights, but what has happened is that everyone is using it and now there is a risk of delegitimize it,” he says.

On the other hand the opposition Assemblyman Luis Fernando Torres, from the PSC-Cambio Alliance, believes that this amendment should be made through a Constituent Assembly because it is a right. “To punish the abuse of judicial warranties is unusual in a State in which the guarantees have been the rallying cry,” questioned the opponent.