Since it is not in accordance with the Constitution, the Constitutional Court (CC) has issued an unfavorable opinion on the draft Organic Decree on the emergency economic law for the balance, organization and transparency of public finances presented by President Guillermo Lasso.

The decision was made by the votes of nine constitutional judges at the session held on Thursday, October 5. However, the sentence was announced on Friday evening. Judge Carmen Corral passed the verdict.

The decree law was sent by Lasso on September 5, under the powers that the executive branch has after the activation of the cross death.

Among the proposed measures was a change in the formula for calculating the increase budget allocations for the education and health sectors, based on the budget collected from the previous year. That the state pays 33.33% to the tripartite solidarity fund of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS) for the treatment of catastrophic diseases.

In addition, it is proposed to prohibit the collection of interest and/or fines arising from untimely payment of goods, procured services, as well as periodic contributions, contributions, fees and/or registrations, whenever this occurs between public entities that are part of the budget of the General State; Universities and polytechnics were exempted from this. Eliminate interest on the national debt with the IESS for 40% of the contribution to retiree pensions.

The executive committee also suggested 100% forgiveness of interest, fines and all other types of additional fees generated due to late payment goods and services between state entitiesdue to the temporary shortage of the fiscal treasury caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, transfers were made to cover the corresponding total capital obligations in favor of public sector entities, until December 31, 2023.

In the ruling, the Constitutional Court reminded President Lasso that the decrees on the economic state of emergency sent to the organization, within the framework of the death of the cross, “must be sent with enough time to carry out a preliminary control of constitutionality, taking into account their number, extension and complexity with regard to the economic the subject they deal with. If this were not the case, the Constitutional Court would not be able to perform the relevant constitutional review in a timely manner.”

The President’s initiative was rejected by various sectors, such as teachers, workers, members and pensioners of IESS, Decentralized Autonomous Government (GAD), among others. To oppose them, they held protests and filed legal appeals, so that the Court would not approve the decree law.

When amending the budget to allocate the budget for the education sector, the teachers assured that there would be a reduction of more than 1000 million dollars.

In the part related to social security, the lawyer of IESS, Miriam del Carmen Toro, explained to the court that the institution would be damaged because it would not be able to collect interest for the amount of 1.129 million dollars, which would deepen the entity’s crisis. .

In its reasoning, the Court found that “eliminating claims from IESS without any technical justification directly impairs its viability”, which would be against constitutional norms.