Clever Jimenez: Judge Blacio contradicts herself

Clever Jimenez

The appeal, in which the National Court of Justice (CNJ) reviews a misapplication of the law in a sentence, is the last recourse left to the Assemblyman (Pachakutik) Clever Jimenez, to stop the execution of the sentence given by judge Lucy Blacio, who he said she contradicted on different ruling in a similar case.

On April 17, Blacio sentenced Jimenez, along with his advisor, Fernando Villavicencio, to 18 months in prison, while the activist Carlos Figueroa only 6 months under the crime of insulting the Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa due to the police uprising of September 30, 2010. The judgment also includes issuing a public apology to the president and paying a financial compensation of around $ 120,000.

The lawmaker maintained that his conviction is a “political persecution” against him and claimed that the current contradictory rulings of the CNJ incurred when he was sentenced.

Jimenez pointed out an example that the criminal chamber of the CNJ, chaired by Blacio, took a different approach in a case similar to his, which was dismissed by another board without the complaint of being classified as malicious and reckless.

For his part, the president defended the judicial independence during last Saturday broadcast and accused the media of trying to defend something indefensible: “the ineffable condemnation of Clever Jimenez.”