The reform organic law for attracting and stimulating investments for productive development did not suffer the same fate as the organic law for strengthening the family economy, which received a positive opinion from the Constitutional Court (CC), while the first one was rejected and it is proposed to deal with it at the next convocation of the National Assembly .

For the Constitutional Court, this proposal is “unconstitutional and therefore a positive opinion is inadmissible”. He believes that this would not be considered an economic emergency, but they leave “the sure authority of the President of the Republic to submit a bill on the same topic after the new convocation of the National Assembly is established.”

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The Government said that this law, along with other benefits, will generate employment and investments in the country. According to the current law, free zones can only exist at the initiative of the state, but with the reform, these initiatives should have come from the public sector, the private sector, and mixed initiatives could also be given.

However, the Court also considers unconstitutional the survival clause that appears in the proposal and which “has the effect of ultra-activity of the norm, according to which if there are changes in the legal system on incentives that affect the legal regime of investment zones”, their managers and operators can continue to enjoy (benefits) during the period of validity and to carry out their economic activities on a regular basis until their end”. He believes that this limits the power of political supervision that the National Assembly could exercise if it later concludes that this investment regime is unsuitable and if it were to abolish or amend it, as a result of ultra-activity, it would have no real consequences.

Because of the long-term implications it has for the Ecuadorian economic model, the Court assesses that this proposal requires an appropriate and exhaustive parliamentary technical discussion.

His analysis is presented in four approaches:

Are there obvious or obvious inconsistencies between the content of the project and the Constitution?

Does the project conflict with Article 82 of the Constitution on the violation of legal certainty with its fifth general provision that limits the presentation of supplements to issues of force majeure or fortuitous event?

Does the project contradict Article 148 of the Constitution by establishing immutable provisions and regulating issues that do not represent economic urgency?

Does the project contravene Article 335 of the Constitution for creating an imbalance in the market by providing better conditions and prices within the Free Zones?

After his analysis, The Constitutional Court determines that it is not appropriate to give a positive opinion on constitutionality. Despite this, after an exclusively preventive analysis was carried out in which the unconstitutionality found corresponds to Article 148 of the Constitution, due to the immutability of its provisions and it is not an urgent economic issue, nothing prevents the presentation of a bill on the same topic when the National Assembly is reformed.