National Assembly detects some critical knots that block its legislative task and seeks a way to untie them

The legislative task of the National Assembly has critical knots that reflect a slow fulfillment of the legislative agenda called Minka for Life, and that in four more months it will complete the first year of management.

In a final meeting, the bench leaders and the legislative authorities detected some bottlenecks that do not allow them to advance and they consider that they should be regulated via regulations and advice in the permanent specialized commissions.

It was determined that there are abuses on the part of the legislative commissions with requests for extensions for the presentation of the reports of the projects for the first and second debate; abuse by legislators in requests for changes to the agenda in plenary sessions; lack of control in the presentation of letters rogatory; and, duplication of calls to appear of civil servants in the commissions and in the plenary session.

The official statistics of the number of votes in plenary will be known this week. But it was said that more than 40% of the votes in Parliament sessions are for changes to the agenda and for the approval of letters rogatory.

The legislative agenda Minka for Life, presented on June 21, 2021, included the processing of 85 bills that should be approved until May 2022, as announced by Guadalupe Llori, after her position as president of Parliament and after reaching consensus an agenda with the benches.

National Assembly seeks to break paradigms in legislation and intends to approve 85 laws in one year

The five legislative benches promised to present the texts of the projects included in the agenda; At the end of eight months, all the political forces still need to do their homework and present the projects.

That is how the Union for Hope (UNES) bench has yet to present five projects whose themes are included in the Minka for Life agenda, the Democratic Left four projects, three to the Pachakutik bloc, as well as to the Social Christian bloc. On the other hand, the ruling party considers that in the month of February the urgent investment project will enter the Assembly.

The agenda defined in June 2021 contains five axes: the first refers to issues of health, education, culture, risk management and citizen security; the second to economy, productive development, employment, labor and social security; in the third axis they include 18 projects related to human rights, family, gender equity; the fourth axis corresponds to the natural rights and collective rights of peoples and nationalities; and, the fifth axis addresses issues of ethics, transparency, social control and the fight against corruption.

Delayed work

Everyone the block coordinators agree that the National Assembly has a backlog, although they speak of compliance with 60% of what was proposed a year ago. In addition, they coincide in making decisions to take a turn and untie those knots that do not allow progress in the legislation.

The coordinator of the Social Christian caucus, Esteban Torres, points out that the caucuses recognize that there is a delay in the work and that this is fundamentally due to an abuse of extensions that the commissions are requesting.

Another of the issues that the administration intends to regulate is to prevent new projects that are presented from starting from scratch when other initiatives on the same subject are already being processed.; Therefore, according to legislator Torres, a way will be sought so that the proposals that enter are considered as inputs or are unified, as happened with the Executive’s project on the regulation of the progressive use of public force, since the commission of Sovereignty and Comprehensive Security analyzes four proposals on this subject.

The PSC has yet to present three bills within the Minka for Life agenda and they refer to the modification for the correct use of public finances, reforms to the Financial Organic Code, reforms to the Hydrocarbons Law, among others.

Rafael Lucero, coordinator of Pachakutik, considers that the Parliament in eight months advanced 60% of the agenda, that although the Minka for Life agenda includes that the bloc must present fourteen projects, at the moment that political sector is missing three proposals.

Lucero described that there is concern in the development that the commissions have had, since the entry of laws to the Assembly exceeds the production in the commissions; for example, the childhood and adolescence commission that studies the Organic Code for the Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescents (Copinna) requested a further extension of the extension already granted, but this was denied and the commission ended up approving a motion to archive the project .

The Pachakutik legislator reveals that in the evaluation it was detected that there are too many requests to change the agendas of the plenary sessions and that time is often wasted in these votes because some are unimportant issues and wear down the legislature.

It is also intended to regulate the requests for appearances in the plenary session of the Assembly of those officials who have already appeared or are being audited in the commissions., to avoid what happened in the last week when the plenary session spent ten hours to receive the same authorities who already appeared before the commissions on issues of the erosion of the Coca River in the Amazon, and on the sinkhole in the Zaruma canton .

Although the coordinator of the Unión por la Esperanza (UNES) bench, Paola Cabezas, does not want to delegitimize any commission, she assures that there are some that have debts and difficulties to present the reports for the knowledge of the plenary session, either because of the accumulated workload or because of getting involved in media issues.

The legislature, due to this lack of definition of priorities, adds Cabezas, has not been able to provide answers to emerging issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been going on for two years and a law has not yet been approved that regulates the Government’s action in the face of a threat of Health.

This political sector has yet to submit five bills to incorporate them into the Minka for Life agenda, and these are related to care economy issues, a law to ensure liquidity for good living, reforms for refinancing and credit payment facilities of the national financial system and reforms on protection, promotion of women’s rights.

The official Juan Fernando Flores (CREO) points out that the legislative agenda has been fulfilled, but that There are commissions that need advice and support regarding what to do when projects are presented on matters that are already being addressed at the tables.. There, what fits is to unify the new proposals after the first debate and gain time in the treatment of the projects.

Flores comments that there are commissions that have extended their time to present reports and others that have deadlines to expire in February. But he warned that it is the decision of the benches and the president of the legislature not to grant more deadlines, and if they do not comply, sanctions will be applied to the presidents of the tables with the suspension of up to 20 days.

The Democratic Left, which is launching a new block chief, Marlon Cadena, announces an evaluation to the presidencies and vice-presidencies of the commissions regarding the work carried out in these, as well as determining the four bills that still need to be presented and that are on the Minka for Life agenda.

The ID will be in the line of strengthening the institutional work of the Assembly, that means the commitment of each legislator to avoid abuses in the requests for extensions for the reports of the projects, Submit warrants and requests for changes to the agenda. The ID, Cadena warns, will not support changes to the legislative agenda, unless the issue is of importance to the country. (I)