If Daniel Noboa’s government has made anything clear, it is that Ecuador is at war and has a common enemy: organized crime. The Minister of Politics, Mónica Palencia, even highlighted illegal mining as a problem in certain areas of the country, while the head of the Joint Command, Rear Admiral Jaime Vela, stated that to achieve peace the country must take the commitment in his set.

To this should be added announcements of changes in police leadership, responsibilities of generals, adjustment of intelligence, equipment, reduction of violent deaths, loyalty of the military to the executive, among others.

Legal uncertainty

These advertisements raise at least two issues that are intertwined and that could become a model of the real commitment of all functions of the state to oppose organized crime and at the same time show part of those faces that are contaminated by this type of crime.delinquency.

The questions are: how will they build the necessary political support? And how will impunity be opposed? These issues put a good deal of weight on the political action of the executive branch.

Lawyers vs. shades

This work includes, for example, persuading or neutralizing the Civil Revolution bloc, one of its legislative partners – which at least served to organize the Assembly – to give up or, at least, postpone its specific political program that affects one of the actors involved in this to the war on crime: State Prosecutor, Diana Salazar. This could improve other types of political processes, such as those of members of the Judicial Council.

It also means that the PSC or, at least, the Speaker of the Assembly – its other partner in the same conformation of the legislature – joins in some action against the Judicial Council, the administrative, management, supervisory and disciplinary system of the judiciary, which has its own members facing criminal charges. : Maribel Barreno and Juan José Morillo face charges for alleged influence peddling; Wilman Terán, Maribel Barreno and Xavier Muñoz, for alleged obstruction of justice and, the latter, also for alleged money laundering. These same members were questioned at the national and international level because of the competition for the appointment of judges for the National Court of Justice, and its president, advisor Terán, is received by Henry Kronfle, the president of the National Assembly, in a political act that is difficult to understand in the current situation.

So far, the group of challenges is very difficult to achieve. But there is something else: justice owes a lot to the behavior not only of members of the judiciary, but also to the decisions of judges who release prisoners associated with organized crime and the ever-prevailing impunity.

Although the ideal is for the functions of the state to be independent, isn’t it time for a meeting with the Constitutional Court and the National Court of Justice so that they all pull in the same direction? Suggestions are heard. (OR)