The Council of the Judiciary (CJ) plans to call a public tender on the 29th of this month to integrate the Unit for the Judgment of Crimes Related to Corruption and Transnational Organized Crime, although there is already a claim of unconstitutionality on the creation of this unit .
Last week in Cuenca, the CJ approved the instructions for the contest of those who will make up the new agency specializing in the prosecution of crimes related to corruption.
Two first-level judges will be created, two criminal courts for trial and two rooms of the Provincial Court of Pichincha for appeal. A total of 40 people would work in the Unit, of which fourteen will be judges.
The president of the Council, Fausto Murillo, indicated that this is a project in which they have been working with some organizations of the European Union, the Organization of American States and the United States. He also guaranteed that citizen oversight will be allowed in the contest process.
The headquarters of the Unit will be Quito and Murillo stressed that those who are selected as judges will receive the necessary training and protection to carry out their duties.
In November of last year, the CJ approved the resolution to create this new unit. Additionally, the National Assembly had approved a package of reforms to the Organic Code of the Judicial Function (COFJ), which includes judges specialized in this type of crime and which entered into force in December 2020.
There are 44 crimes related to corruption and transnational crime that will be judged by this Unit.
However, last January an unconstitutionality lawsuit was filed against the resolution of the CJ and for the reform of the COFJ.
The lawyers César García Sánchez and Olivia Zavala Fonseca, based in Guayaquil, presented their request to the Constitutional Court and assured that the creation of these units in the city of Quito “limits the free exercise of the right to defense of the accused” and “it gives rise to the creation of a ‘professional elite’ in the capital”.
The lawyers questioned that crimes committed in other jurisdictions are tried in Quito, which establishes a geographical barrier for the defendants, since they could not choose a lawyer they trust. This, they assured, violates the due process guaranteed in the Constitution. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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