Guillermo Lasso could be deposed in a flawed political trial, with further damage to the institutional framework. But there are transparent options for thwarting the sinister plan.

The President must continue the defense in the trial that has begun – because he did not prevent the incredible embezzlement – and request precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), in order to avoid irreparable damage to his human rights, protected by democratic States. Another option: for a group of citizens to submit the same request, but with the claim that the dismissal would affect the general decision on the election of Las.

The initiatives would prevent the impeachment of individual parliamentarians who forget that the compensation paid by the state to victims of possible abuse is repeated.

Lawyers with two different constitutional visions will appear in the legislature for the political trial of Guillermo Lasso

It would be enough to reaffirm what the IACHR said in its request to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2017), in order for it to rule on the doubts about the legitimacy of the impeachment trial of a democratically elected president, rejected for violating due process.

The IACHR condemned the political processes and removals of former presidents, including those of Manuel Zelaya (Honduras), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), who were removed from office by the legislature. This established that the constitutional order, the rule of law and the Inter-American Democratic Charter were violated by these processes. Evaluating the trial of Rousseff as arbitrary, he asserted that it had an impact on the rights of the former president and Brazilian society.

In other words, there are elements in the IACHR’s request to the Inter-American Court that support precautionary measures in favor of President Lasso.

The IACHR has also found that political trials without due process affect human rights…

Therefore, if the Commission considered that the irregularities in the prosecution of Rousseff (as well as Zelaye and Luga), distorted the impeachment trial and involved the risk of being arbitrarily used to cover up a parliamentary coup, it could not appreciate the situation in Laso’s case differently.

The IACHR has also found that political trials without due process affect human rights in their collective and individual dimensions. Such uncertainty affects the separation of powers, due to its arbitrary use to the detriment of the executive.

President Lasso can also argue that the instruments of the Inter-American System, read in the context of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, protect both the president and society in general in political trials, for the necessary balance of the principle of separation of powers. A concept rooted in the IACHR.

The IACHR also told the Inter-American Court that an arbitrary impeachment trial conditions the continuity in office of a democratically elected president, whether he maintains a favorable parliamentary majority or the opposition fails to muster a qualified majority. This modifies the rules of the presidential democratic system, “because it would enable a kind of parliamentary coup d’état”. (OR)