The president of the Integral Security table affirms that UNES assembly members asked him not to mention what happened in the prisons before 2017.
The National Assembly, this November 17, opened the debate on the situation of the crisis in Ecuador’s prisons based on a report prepared by the Commission for Sovereignty, Integration and Integral Security regarding the investigation into the actions of public officials of the different functions of the State to prevent and resolve the prison crisis and the alarming situation of citizen insecurity that the country is experiencing.
The report contains 52 conclusions and 72 recommendations on the prison situation. The president of the legislative commission that investigated the case, Ramiro Narváez (ID), before the plenary session affirmed that it was detected that the control of many pavilions of the Litoral Penitentiary was already in the hands of those deprived of liberty since 2015 .
The plenary session of the Assembly was installed at 10:35 a.m., but after processing two requests to change the agenda, it declared itself in general commission to receive Viviana Hidrobo, representative of the alliance of organizations for human rights of Ecuador, who participated as an observer in the investigation.
Assembly members believe that the prison crisis is not solved with the approval of new laws
That there is a disarticulation of the institutions that generates a worrying weakening in the social rehabilitation systems.
Narváez revealed that hours before the approval of this report in the Sovereignty and Integral Security Commission, he received requests to erase from the report everything that was from 2017 to the past, and that this request was made by the assembly members representing the bloc Union for Hope (UNES), which presented a minority report.
Narváez said that the request was not to mention what happened in the prisons before 2017, that the analysis was supposedly from 2017 onwards.
One of the conclusions of the report indicates that the State, since 2015, has been progressively losing control and sovereignty within the regional deprivation of liberty centers. Currently, it is noted that the State has relative control over provincial detention centers.
Narváez clarified that in the report they are critical of the government of Guillermo Lasso, but that they understand that he did not cause this crisis, but that he inherited this problem. That she is five months in the Government, but it was observed that her authorities are often very slow in taking actions and decisions and that they have dedicated themselves to washing their hands, like the minister responsible for human rights who states that it is not their responsibility to violation of human rights within prisons.
The legislator of the ID affirmed that the National Service of Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI) is an institution that is dismantled, it does not have a budget, administrative staff or prison guides.
He indicated that the Government first stated that this is a problem of confrontations between criminal gangs, which is true, but that is not the cause of the crisis, when there are no directors and budgets. Then he blamed the Constitutional Court for not letting him act, and today he points out that he lacks laws to carry out the actions, when what must be done is to assume responsibilities.
Conclusions and recommendations
Among the 52 conclusions established by the report presented by the Sovereignty and Integral Security Commission on the prison crisis, it is highlighted that from 2016 to the present 2021, the Ecuadorian State did not observe international standards and compliance with the minimum rules for treatment of persons deprived of liberty despite the recommendations received from the universal and inter-American human rights system.
That the State did not act with due diligence to guarantee the protection of life and personal integrity within the prisons, in particular in the face of the acts of violence and the prison massacres of 2019, 2020 and 2021 despite knowledge of the conditions of risk in which the persons deprived of liberty were.
Between the period 2016 and 2021, the direct responsibility of the public servants with powers vis-à-vis the national system of social rehabilitation is determined, that is, the ministers of Justice, Human Rights and Religion; national secretaries of Human Rights; members of the board of directors of the technical body for social rehabilitation, presidents of the board of that body, full of the Council of the Judiciary as the governing body of the judicial system.
Faced with this, the Commission instructs the full Assembly to evaluate the relevance of the initiation of a political trial to the authorities that are related to the social rehabilitation system.
Another of the conclusions indicates that the Judicial Function has acted with indifference in the face of the serious problems faced by the social rehabilitation system in general and in particular those directly related to access to timely justice.
For this reason, the Commission recommends that the Judicial Council urgently implement a process to evaluate the performance of judges of criminal guarantees, prison guarantees, and multicompetent units that are processing processes of persons deprived of liberty.
The prison crisis evidenced by the latest massacres is the result of years of abandonment of the rehabilitation system by the State and the absence of public policies and comprehensive management models of social rehabilitation and labor and social reintegration with a rights approach, concludes the investigation.
That the SNAI does not have an ideal prison management system, it does not have information on monitoring a plan to comply with the sentence, information on the progress or activities of the treatment axes, as well as information regarding the medical situation or alerts that are due. be considered for adequate treatment and rehabilitation.
For this reason, it is recommended that the Executive function carry out a prison census; that the State Comptroller General’s Office carry out a management audit of the authorities whose responsibilities have been identified and also formulate examinations of the contracting processes.
It also recommends that the Constitutional Guarantees Commission of the National Assembly present a report to the plenary within 30 days on the feasibility of granting humanitarian pardons by the Assembly. Likewise, that within 60 days the same Commission present a report to the plenary on the state of the situation of comprehensive reparation for persons deprived of liberty who have suffered human rights violations. (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
