Denunciation of the Treaty of the Sucre System does require approval of the Assembly, establishes the Constitutional Court

The complaint to Constitutive Treaty of the Sucre Unitary System, in which the government of Guillermo Lasso is committed, must be analyzed by the National Assembly, which should issue prior legislative approval. This was decided by the Constitutional Court in a resolution published in the Official Registry, on April 25, 2022, after the session held on April 13.

In this way, the legislative entity must rule on this process, so that Ecuador terminates its participation in the Sucre System, which, according to journalistic reports, reports from the Central Bank and the findings of the Control Commission, was used to an alleged money laundering, through fictitious exports to Venezuela.

The ruling of the Court, which is signed by its president Ali Lozada, and which had seven votes in favor and one saved voteindicates that on February 18, Fabián Pozo, legal secretary of the Presidency, submitted the request to the Court to certify whether this complaint must have prior legislative approval.

Within the consultation process, andn March 24, the judge in charge of the case, Karla Andrade Quevedo, had asked the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, “to ratify and express his willingness to denounce the Constitutive Treaty.” President Lasso fulfilled this request on March 30.

Thus, the Court’s pronouncement is one more step towards Ecuador’s withdrawal from said treaty, which was signed by several governments in the region in 2009 (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba).

The ruling of the Court indicates that the Assembly must rule on the matter of an international treaty, according to article 419 of the Constitution. And it concludes that the Sucre Treaty complies with at least two of the eight conditions for this: that “they contain the commitment to issue, modify or repeal a law and that it commits the country to an integration and trade agreement. He also said that in 2010 the Court already indicated that this should have, for its ratification, the approval of the assembly, so that for its complaint it requires the same procedure.

According to the weekly bulletin of the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE), the Sucre -which in its peak years (2012), had transactions for $1,065 million- currently has zero dollars on record. Between December 2018 and December 2019, it handled balances between $500,000 and $700,000. But since January 2020, that position is at zero.

The issue of the Sucre has already been analyzed by the Supervisory Commission of the Assembly, and several findings have been made. The report of that legislative entity brings several conclusions, among which it is considered that the system would have served for money laundering, it is also indicated that part of the money from these fictitious exports could have reached the electoral campaign of Rafael Correa in 2013.

It is also established that there was a lack of control from various authorities and even that the companies did not act effectively in the control. The report brings a list of companies and people who would have been the beneficiaries of those monies. (I)