The date and time on which the president of the National Assembly, Guadulupe Llori, will include the report to the full knowledge is not yet known.
Neither the Constitution nor the Organic Law of the Legislative Function grants powers to the National Assembly to lift banking secrecy, as stated in the report of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission in the recommendations it made after the investigation of the Pandora Papers.
The third recommendation of the report of the Guarantees table, approved on November 5 with six votes from Pachakutik and Unión por la Esperanza (UNES), states that “in accordance with the Organic Law of the Legislative Function, the full Assembly approve a resolution by which the reservation of all the information that has been classified as reserved by the State institutions related to the transactions, assets and investigations in progress, linked to Guillermo Lasso and linked, is lifted. Likewise, that the plenary session of the Assembly inform all State institutions that the President of the Republic has publicly and in writing renounced the secrecy of his accounts. In this sense, the plenary session of the National Assembly will grant a period of 48 hours to all State institutions to deliver the information to the National Assembly ”.
This recommendation for assembly members Wilma Andrade (ID), Ricardo Vanegas (Pachakutik), Virgilio Saquicela (BAN) and Esteban Torres (PSC) has no constitutional or legal support.
Assemblyman of Pachakutik assures that the report on the investigation of the Pandora Papers was altered
Wilma Andrade explained that a legislative board can recommend whatever is in its report to the plenary, but there is a condition for that to happen, that is, that it has a legal basis. He stressed that no report is binding.
He reminded legislators that banking secrecy is lifted from the moment a public official takes office and presents his affidavit of assets. And precisely, the President of the Republic, in his statement before the State Comptroller General’s Office, has indicated that he got rid of the investments and trusts in which he was a party before he was a presidential candidate.
Therefore, the secrecy is lifted, but the National Assembly does not have the power to lift it for any citizen, but the Prosecutor’s Office, and even less to pretend that Lasso’s accounts are opened before he is a presidential candidate.
Saquicela, meanwhile, specified that it is inappropriate for the Guarantee Commission to recommend that from the plenary session of the National Assembly the banking secrecy of the accounts of the first president be lifted, when the Legislative Branch is neither judge nor prosecutor.
Only the ordinary justice through the Prosecutor’s Office and the corresponding judges could order the control entities such as the Superintendency of Banks to raise or provide the information, meanwhile, the reserve operates.
“The Assembly does not have that power or the legal or constitutional power to accept that recommendation made by the board that investigated the Pandora Papers,” Saquicela insisted.
Vanegas pointed out that the National Assembly does not have the competence to request that the information on the banking movements of a citizen be collected, because it is not a judge.
“We cannot ask the Superintendency of Banks, the Internal Revenue Service and the Prosecutor’s Office to provide us with information that by its nature is still reserved, and the officials of these entities are not obliged to do so, because they would be violating the Law” , clarified Vanegas.
Therefore, the Pachakutik legislator insisted that it is also inappropriate for the report on the Pandora Papers to proceed to the political prosecution of those who refused to deliver information that is still reserved because it is under prosecution.
The Commission on Constitutional Guarantees in the sixth recommendation indicates that “in accordance with article 131 of the Constitution of the Republic, after observing the corresponding procedure, the authorities who did not appear and / or did not facilitate the information required by the Commission on Constitutional Guarantees, Human Rights, Collective Rights and Interculturality, within the present investigation process ”.
Esteban Torres, coordinator of the PSC bloc, confirmed that his party’s position is clear regarding the report presented on the Pandora Papers case, and considers that its recommendations do not conform to what is a process of political control in the National Assembly, therefore he rejects several of the conclusions.
The only one that is adapted to what is a task of political control, Torres added, is that if relevant information is found about some type of conduct of the President of the Republic that has to be reviewed by the Prosecutor’s Office or Comptroller’s Office, it should be sent documentation to those control bodies.
He affirmed that the Legislative Branch has nothing to do with the issue of bank secrecy, that corresponds to justice, and also all public officials, including assembly members, put an express statement to the Comptroller, at the beginning of the administration, raising stealth when any authority deems it so. (I)
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