The Ecuadorian Congress must submit the motion for impeachment to the Constitutional Court, which must accept or reject the case. (Portal/Leah Millis)
The motion for the impeachment of the President William Lasso that it would be transferred to the constitutional court of Ecuador has not yet left the Ecuadorian Congress. It was announced Tuesday that lawmakers will reconsider the vote that approved the impeachment by Congress’ highest governing body. The measure was enacted because they hope to correct errors in the petition, which will reach the Supreme Court. Once sent the highest body of the judiciary pronounce six days whether the motion for interpellation is accepted or not.
Stephen TorresChairman of the Bank of Christian Social Partypointed out that “several sectors of the Assembly have decided that the document goes to the Constitutional Court without errors”, for this the vote that took place on Monday will be reviewed and the motion could even be returned to the supporters.
Five of the seven members of the Legislative Administration Council (CAL) approved the motion to impeach the President of the Republic of Ecuador alleged misconduct in public administration resulting from crimes against the administration.
the MPs Natalia Arias the official CREO movement and Johanna Moreira The Izquierda Democrática (ID) did not participate in the CAL decision, abstaining and repeating their benches’ complaints about the informality of the charges in the investigative report containing the charges against the President. Furthermore, they unanimously point out that the errors were not corrected according to any legal process.
59 MEPs out of 137 supported impeachment motion (EFE/José Jácome)
To support the political process against the President, the deputies signed Virgilio Saquicela (former member of the pro-government Bancada del Acuerdo Nacional), Marcela Holguin, Ronnie Aleaga, Stephen Torres And Darwin Pereira, all opponents and members of the Citizens’ Revolution, the Social Christian Party and the Pachakutik parties. The resolution ensures that the motion for impeachment provided for in the Constitution and Legislative Function Act has been verified. This means that the petition addressed to the President of the National Assembly, Virgilio Saquicela, would be duly prepared, listing charges against the President of the Republic and supported by at least a third of the members of the Ecuadorian Congress. But only this last condition is really fulfilled.
The text adopted provides that the resolution, together with the request to impeach President Guillermo Lasso Mendoza and the Constitutional Court, will be sent to the Secretary General of the Assembly, so that he can proceed with the issuance of the Constitutional Court Opinion on admissibility or inadmissibility.
March 16 opposition deputies Viviana Veloz, Pedro Zapata, Mireya Pazmino and Rodrigo Fajardo They signed the interpellation motion, but inserted false provisions of the Constitution and the Presidential Impeachment Act into the petition. The aforementioned provisions refer to other authorities, which could lead to the nullity of the application because the requirement for individualization of the reasons for the constitutional complaint would not be met.
For this reason, Correista Bloc MP Viviana Veloz has given the Legislative President a scope for the document, something like a “errata“. However, this new text contained other errors, this time related to the procedure for dismissing Ministers of State and other officials of state control bodies, provisions that do not apply to the President of the Republic.
Guillermo Lasso’s impeachment motion is under re-examination in the CAL. This after the errors that the petition contains. @teleamazonasec pic.twitter.com/6ZYg9esO4Y
– Andrea Samaniego (@AndreSamaniego_) March 21, 2023
To implement these changes, lawmaker Moreira added, the CAL must order the changes or additions to be made within three days of the original document, text that should once again have the 59 signatures in favor of the corrections. However, this was not done and the wrong document was approved by the CAL.
For his part, the deputy Darwin Pereira, Pachakutik’s delegate at CAL, announced that he would receive the report from the Legislative Technical Unit (UTL), an administrative body with a lower hierarchy than the Council or Congress Plenary, recommending that the impeachment be referred to the Constitutional Court. The UTL report was signed by Jorge Soza Meza, formerly lawyer for Édison Washington Prado Álava “aka Gerald”, also known as “El Pablo Escobar de Ecuador”, a drug dealer arrested in Colombia in 2017 and currently serving a 19-year sentence is serving , years in a US prison.
MP Natalie Arias from the ruling party and member of the CAL clarified that the UTL does not have the authority to decide whether there is any basis for filing a political interpellation against the President of the Republic. He assured that the document presented by the UTL for the political process was unfounded and intended to justify errors not legally corrected.
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