Constitutional Court issued a ruling. Henry Llanes promotes a citizen regulation proposal so that the conformation is with five members.
A possible solution to the controversy over the current formation of the Board of Directors of the IESS continues to be deferred and there seems to be no easy way out. This, despite the fact that the subject has been treated resolve since 2015, that is, for seven years.
A few weeks ago, at the end of November 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled through sentence 70-20-IS/21 and accumulated, declaring the partial non-compliance of the National Assembly on a previous sentence that forced him to elaborate a law that would allow a broad and inclusive appointment of the representatives of workers and employers and that was issued in 2016.
He also orders the Assembly resume the process of drafting the law in accordance with article 138 of the Constitution. This, after the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, vetoed a law approved by the legislative body in the first days of June 2021. This article establishes that in the event of a total veto, the Assembly may deal with the issue again and ratify what has been approved, only one year after the veto has been made. This could be in June 2022.
The Court also tells the Assembly that must inform you about compliance with the measure within a year from the notification of this sentence. Additionally, it warns him that if there is non-observance of the judgment, the Court may exercise “various powers to guarantee its compliance, as established in article 86, number 4 of the Constitution.”
This pronouncement in practice only lengthens the process that already lasts seven years and thus the IESS will continue for several more months with a Board of Directors questioned from various sectors.
Nowadays The Council has in office its president and representative of the Executive, Francisco Cepeda, the workers’ delegate, Luis Clavijo Romero, and the employers’, César Rodríguez.
According to Henry Llanes, representative of IESS retirees, there are currently four possible ways to solve the problem of the IESS Council.
The first would be precisely the one proposed by the Constitutional Court. However, for Llanes, this would represent a serious problem, since the law that was vetoed by Lasso did not include the request that the Court had made in 2016, which was that an inclusive and participatory election be held. The law of the Assembly, rather, ratified the system with electoral colleges and with the same structure. There was a variation that was the rotation of the presidency.
A second way, says Llanes, it would be for the Assembly to issue a new project, different from the one that was rejected and that does comply with the parameters required by the Court. This would take several months as well and would be subject to presidential vetoes.
However, Llanes proposes a third way based on article 103 of the Constitution that guarantees the Normative Popular Initiative. These days he is carrying out the procedures before the National Electoral Council so that they allow him to advance in this initiative. If it is achieved, it should get the necessary signatures of citizen support for its bill. According to his proposal, the Council should be made up of five members, two representatives of the affiliates, one of the retirees, one of the employers and one of the Government, but coming from the Ministry of Labor. With this, the greater weight of the decisions would be on the affiliates and retirees themselves.
A fourth way out would be that the Constitutional Court modulates article 28 of the IESS Law, exercising a power similar to the one it already exercised when it annulled the Labor Justice Law that withdrew 40% of pensions and ratified the validity of article 237 of the Constitution, restoring the 40% payment.
From the Workers Commission, Assemblyman Luis Almeida He commented that the Assembly recently approved with an important majority that the IESS should have political control by the Assembly. Additionally, he maintained that he will try to promote the bills that guarantee that there is no meddling in the coffers of the IESS by the State.
On the Board of Directors considered an outrage that the workers’ representative, Luis Clavijo, be kept in office. He explained that when reviewing the data of the Comptroller it is established that it has a Report with Criminal Responsibility (IRP). The same problem (an IRP registry) is faced by the president of the IESS.
In the case of Clavijo, Llanes recalled that he was separated from the IESS after the Comptroller’s Office established that he did not fulfill his duties by allowing the former president, Richard Espinosa, to disappear from the accounting records the IESS health debt for more than $ 2,000 million. Later, the Comptroller’s Office made a mistake of disrespecting due process and Clavijo filed a lawsuit that ended up winning. And although his term had already expired, he was reincorporated into the Council. Meanwhile, the situation of the employers’ delegate is also complex, since this was Felipe Pezo’s alternate, who was also self-extended for at least eight years. Llanes considers that he is also extended in functions.
Finally, Almeida claimed that Cepeda himself would have an IRP in the Comptroller’s records at the time. On the subject, the president of the IESS has explained in several media outlets that the issue has already been dealt with at the Prosecutor’s Office level and that it has been found that there was no harm to the State, however, the case remains open for more than six years. . (I)
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