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Constitutional Court has hundreds of pending cases
Posted On 08 Jul 2014
On last June 26, the Alianza PAIS (AP) bloc of the National Assembly, led by Gabriela Rivadeneira, presented the official proposal to make 17 amendments to the Constitution. However, the Constitutional Court (CC) has hundreds of pending cases that have not had resolution and have been delivered before the government proposal.
The CC has 45 days time to discuss the process of AP, but the ruling party requested that the procedure should be done quickly in order to meet the agenda of debates, to which the deputy president for the CC, Manuel Viteri, responded “we are committed to work as quickly as possible.”
Last June 26, Gabriela Rivadeneira delivered the draft amendments to Manuel Viteri of the CC.
Demands coming from the Government are resolved in months, like the unconstitutionality of Article 72 of the Organic Law on the Legislative Branch for the President to be able to veto interpretative rules; but demands such as the unconstitutionality of the Communications Law, have been about a year in process, without the CC ruling on the matter.
The applicant on the unconstitutionality of the Communications Law, Enrique Herrería, argues that the delay from the CC in the resolution has allowed excesses in its application. “The best example of the double standard of the Court can be seen when the judge (Manuel Viteri) that received the request for amendments, said it would be resolved with all haste. This speed is only for actions brought by people from the government,” he said.
Long demands:
- The Ecuarunari has more than five cases without resolution, the oldest one, deals with indigenous justice (Case La Cocha), which started in 2009.
- The unconstitutional claim against the Communications Law has 308 days without trial process.
However:
- It only took 34 days for the CC to decide that YASunidos should first collect signatures and then submit the question.
- The CC took 82 days to resolve the Executive request in order to being able of objecting interpretive rules.
