Little monitoring and evaluation of the laws approved by the National Assembly

The process of monitoring and evaluation of the law has been operational for five months and in January 2022 the evaluation report of the Organic Law for the Comprehensive Planning of the Special Amazon Territorial Circumscription is expected, which constitutes the first trial of this contemplated system in the latest reforms applied to the Organic Law of the Legislative Function.

During the first year that the law monitoring and evaluation system was in force, only two requests for monitoring and evaluation of the Law were submitted, which were made by the president of the Assembly, Guadalupe Llori. The first, on the Comprehensive Planning Law of the Amazon Special Territorial Circumscription, and the second, regarding the application of the Comprehensive Law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women.

Evaluative exercise

This monitoring system was implemented in the Law of the Legislative Function in November 2020, but this evaluative exercise has been scarce and little is known about this tool that allows knowing if the laws approved by the Legislature are working as planned, if the requirements are met and if their effects benefit the public.

The Assembly creates the Unit for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Law

This analysis is complementary to the process of law formation and is made up of three subsystems: monitoring, evaluation, and citizen participation.

The monitoring subsystem abstracts the most outstanding elements of a law to make them more understandable to the public, such as its object, scope, benefits and identification of the entities in charge of its articulation and execution. It does a control of compliance with the attributions and the provisions established in the regulations.

The evaluation subsystem includes the verification of compliance with the requirements for the drafting of bills, such as the performance of the sustainable development objectives; but it also evaluates the application of the regulations once they come into force.

Instead, the citizen participation subsystem focuses on knowing the application of the approved norm and its benefits for the citizen.

Process

Although article 31 of the Law on the Legislative Function speaks of a unit for monitoring and evaluating the law, it is still in the process of consolidation and regulation; for the moment, its application is in charge of the Legislative Technical Unit (UTL). The idea is that it be a functional unit from the next period, but the process is already operational.

The monitoring is carried out through the permanent specialized commissions and they may request the appearance of officials for this process.

It all begins with a request for follow-up and evaluation at the request of the full Assembly, the Legislative Administration Council (CAL), the presidency of the Assembly, parliamentary groups and legislators.

An evaluation plan is elaborated and with this the CAL determines the feasibility and priority for the elaboration of a report. The plan must include what is intended to be obtained with the evaluation and its scope and even identify the articles of a law that need study and follow-up. This process comprises three phases: preliminary, execution and final phase.

The cases

The CAL, on July 29, 2021, ordered at the request of the president of the Legislature, Guadalupe Llori, the evaluation of the Organic Law for the Comprehensive Planning of the Special Amazon Territorial Circumscription, whose execution fell to the Biodiversity and Resources commission Naturales with the support of the UTL.

The objective is to verify whether its application has fostered a sustainable socio-economic, cultural and environmental model, based on the principles of Sumak Kawsay that compensates for inequities and promotes equitable development in the Amazon region.

It must also determine the proper application of the allocation and transfers of resources from the Fund for Sustainable Amazon Development and the resources of the Common Fund to plans, programs and projects of territorial development and of interest, scope and coverage throughout the Amazon; employment and preferential public contracting; creation and operation of autonomous higher education centers in the provinces of the region.

As part of the application of the citizen participation subsystem, last November, the members of the legislative commission visited six Amazonian provinces with technicians from the UTL, servants of the citizen participation coordination and guests from the public institutions involved whose objective was to socialize the evaluation methodology.

Itinerant technical work tables were formed, divided by thematic axes, in which the observations and proposals of the citizens were received and surveys were applied.

The recommendations collected in the itinerant tables are related to reviewing the project qualification process in the Technical Secretariat of the Amazon Special Territorial Circumscription (CTEA); apply a reform to the structure of the Council of the Amazon Special Territorial Circumscription; have technical support aimed at social organizations that strengthen knowledge in the development of plans and projects; supervise the resources of the CTEA in the delivery of 3% for education; and, verify the effective fulfillment of the hiring of 70% of local labor by public, private and mixed companies.

All the information is being systematized by the UTL for the preparation of the final evaluation report that will be presented in January 2022 to the Specialized Biodiversity Commission, for its knowledge and approval; In this report, the conclusions and recommendations on the application or not of the benefits established in this law will be issued, with the purpose that the National Assembly within its powers can carry out, if applicable, inspection processes and political control, monitor its compliance or promote necessary legal reforms or request improvements to public policies for efficient application of the law.

Paulo Gaibor, in charge of the UTL, explains that the idea of ​​the process is to determine the critical points that have affected the application of the law, that goes through reforms, inspection exercises and determination of responsibilities.

It constitutes a diagnosis that allows determining who has had a breach or if there is any obstacle that does not depend on the design of the law, but on the way it is executed or if it was regulated as established by the Legislature.

The importance of the process at a technical level, according to Gaibor, allows before reforming to evaluate the law in force. For example, the second request for evaluation that came from the president of the Assembly on the Comprehensive Organic Law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women will help determine whether the reforms worked or not, and the beneficiaries themselves will help focus on critical points of the application of the law, and consequently, it could be suggested to make changes to the norm.

The analysis of this law will be in charge of the Commission of Justice and Structure of the State; its president, Alejandro Jaramillo, still does not have information in this regard.

The study will involve the public and private spheres; especially, when they are in multiple situations of vulnerability or risk through effective mechanisms that allow the timely identification of possible dangers and alternative effective protection measures that protect their integrity and life.

Juan Cristóbal Lloret (UNES), a member of the Biodiversity commission that analyzes the Amazonian law, points out that monitoring and evaluation is an old aspiration of the Legislature.

It highlights that the preliminary reports of the evaluation of the Amazonian law show the failure of the national government to assign resources according to the parameters established by the law. There are deficiencies in budget execution, since in the CTEA secretariat there are local problems that have not been overcome and environmental problems persist, and it does not comply with the use of local labor in companies operating in the region.

This evaluative exercise will serve to determine the real reforms that need to be carried out, taking into account that two reform projects were presented to this norm, and then carry out an inspection process to the authorities that should have acted. (I)