The report of the Commission of Constitutional Guarantees that recommends granting 269 amnesties runs the risk of annulling its procedure in the plenary session of the National Assembly because the signatures that supported the document were delivered three days after the term established in the norm.
The term to deliver the document to the presidency of the legislature expired on February 11, and on that day the president of the Commission, José Cabascango (Pachakutik), presented the report without the signatures of the members of the Commission who approved it, and He just did it on February 14.
This action, for the assemblyman Fernando Villavicencio (CN-PSE), annuls the entire process of processing the more than 300 requests for amnesties and pardons presented by activists and social leaders and even the cases of the current prefect, Paola Pabón, and the parliamentary assemblyman Virgilio Hernández, prosecuted for the crime of rebellion.
According to the members of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission, 80% of the 269 approved amnesties correspond to cases related to defenders of the rights of nature, human rights and collective rights. The other cases would refer to the events of October 2019.
The 269 amnesty requests still do not have votes or a date to be approved in the National Assembly
The version of the president of the Commission, José Cabascango, was requested, but there was no response. According to legislator Gruber Zambrano (BAN), a member of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission, the responsibility for formalizing the report falls on the president of the legislative table.
Zambrano, in the meeting prior to the approval of the report, proposed that the president of the Assembly be requested an extension of 20 days due to the lack of documentation from the Prosecutor’s Office on the cases under study, but that the delegates of Pachakutik and UNES, at the table, they did not carry their motion.
According to this legislator who represents Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, on the issue of amnesties the same thing happened as in the Pandora Papers case, the table did not have enough evidence and they had to wait for the files of the State Attorney General’s Office to assess who deserved amnesty or pardon; The “hurry brings fatigue, because I always said that you should wait, because you cannot give amnesty to those who kidnapped and destroyed the city of Quito, where there was death and kidnapping.”
Zambrano reiterated that the members of the table did not wait for the information from the Prosecutor’s Office because they do not want to know the truth of the facts, but the assembly members in a hurry on February 11 pressed for the approval of the report and assembly member José Cabascango “delivered that document only with his signature, only on February 14 they called me to sign, and then the president of the Commission made an annex with the signatures of the assembly members, which is not legal or is not supported by the norm”.
It is the president of the Assembly, Guadalupe Llori, who must resolve this case and the assemblyman Cabascango, face the situation, according to Zambrano.
The Commission for Constitutional Guarantees, Human Rights, Collective Rights and Interculturality is made up of José Cabascango, Édgar Quezada, Mario Ruiz Jácome and Sofía Sánchez (Pachakutik); Victoria Desintonio, Paola Cabezas and María Fernanda Astudillo (UNES); and, Virgilio Saquicela and Gruber Zambrano (BAN).
investigation request
The grassroots of the indigenous movement and even the grassroots of Correismo have to know what their leaders in the National Assembly have just done with the requests for amnesties that would be without legal validity, because the report that should have been presented on February 11 did not have the signatures of the legislators who approved that document, said Assemblyman Fernando Villavicencio.
That he personally agrees with the amnesties for the peasants and grassroots people who mobilized in October 2019, but not for the leaders who intend to camouflage themselves and benefit from these processes, and what the Commission chaired by José Cabascango did is give them the back to his own bases, Villavicencio said.
In addition, he considered that because they were busy conspiring, they forgot to meet the deadlines and sent the amnesty report on February 11, but without the signatures of the Commission’s legislators, which means that the document was never presented. Three days later, on February 14, out of time, the same legislator presented the document with the signatures.
Villavicencio insisted that the late presentation of the signatures invalidates the report and that Cabascango, who promised his base to process the amnesties, committed an illegal act. And according to the national legislator, the other members of the Legislative Commission must also respond, because they sign three days later despite knowing that the term had expired.
For this reason, he asked the president of the legislature to order an investigation into the attitude of the president and the members of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission. For this, a penalty will have to be established.
For the representative of the ruling sector in Parliament, Juan Fernando Flores, the amnesty requests were dropped in the National Assembly due to the lack of signatures on the report, so the plenary session of the legislature could not hear them.
However, the assembly member of the rebel wing of Pachakutik Patricia Sánchez considered that the amnesty report has already entered the Legislative Administration Council (CAL) and that the formalities cannot jeopardize the processing of a request for justice from hundreds of social leaders. .
He argued that Villavicencio’s arguments continue along the same line of desperation as the president of the Assembly, Guadalupe Llori, and what fits is that the report be included in the agenda and the plenary resolves.
Sánchez said that the report complies with the main formality, which is the signature of the president and the secretary of the Commission, and insisted that this document must be brought to the attention of the plenary, otherwise it will be one more of the inconsistencies that Guadalupe Llori would commit.
The coordinator of the Pachakutik block, Rafael Lucero, warned that if there is a breach of deadlines in the presentation of the report, it would enter a limbo, and said that the president of the table would have to be sanctioned based on the law of the Legislative Function.
He stated that the amnesties could not be put at risk and a way out would have to be sought among all the assembly members, that this is no longer due to political discrepancies and in that case all the Pachakutik legislators will close ranks. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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