Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador

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The Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador (Spanish: Tribunal Constitucional del Ecuador) is the highest court in Ecuador dealing with constitutional issues. It was created as part of Ecuador's 1996 constitutional reform package. It is composed of nine magistrates.

Spanish language Romance language

Spanish or Castilian is a Western Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers in the Americas and Spain. It is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.

Ecuador Republic in South America

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) west of the mainland. The capital city is Quito and the largest city as well.

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The Constitutional Tribunal has been affected by Ecuador's recent political crises. In 2005, President Lucio Gutiérrez manipulated his party's modest advantage in Congress to replace numerous justices, including eight of nine members of the Constitutional Tribunal. [1]

Lucio Gutiérrez President of Ecuador

Lucio Edwin Gutiérrez Borbúa served as 43rd President of Ecuador from January 15, 2003 to April 20, 2005.

In 2007, the Tribunal was involved in a confrontation with newly elected President Rafael Correa. On March 9, the Tribunal warned Correa that he would be acting illegally if he ignored its eventual ruling on the constitutionality of a national referendum. Correa responded that the Tribunal was "dominated by the political parties" and that it had no authority to act on the issue. The Tribunal's rulings have often been ignored by Ecuador's presidents and Congress. [2]

Rafael Correa Former President of Ecuador

Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado is an Ecuadorian politician and economist who served as President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The leader of the PAIS Alliance political movement, Correa is a democratic socialist and his administration focused on the implementation of left-wing policies. Internationally, he served as president pro tempore of the Union of South American Nations.

See also

Case No. 111-97-TC is a landmark decision by the Constitutional Tribunal of Ecuador on November 25, 1997, regarding the country's sodomy laws. The newly created tribunal unanimously overturned as unconstitutional the first paragraph of Article 516 of the Penal Code, which criminalized sexual activities between persons of the same sex. The case was the first step towards increasing recognition of LGBT rights in Ecuador. The following year, Ecuador became the first country in the Americas to include sexual orientation as a protected category in its constitution.

Constitution Set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed

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Constitutionalism is "a complex of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law".

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Politics of Ecuador

The politics of Ecuador are multi-party. The central government polity is a four-yearly elected presidential, unicameral representative democracy. The President of Ecuador is head of state and head of government on a multi-party system, leading a cabinet with further executive power. Legislative power is not limited to the National Assembly as it may to a lesser degree be exercised by the executive which consists of the President convening an appointed executive cabinet. Subsequent acts of the National Assembly are supreme over Executive Orders where sufficient votes have been cast by the legislators. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.There is also constitutional republic

In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this definition. For instance, one describes it as the crisis that arises out of the failure, or at least a strong risk of failure, of a constitution to perform its central functions. The crisis may arise from a variety of possible causes. For example, a government may want to pass a law contrary to its constitution; the constitution may fail to provide a clear answer for a specific situation; the constitution may be clear but it may be politically infeasible to follow it; the government institutions themselves may falter or fail to live up to what the law prescribes them to be; or officials in the government may justify avoiding dealing with a serious problem based on narrow interpretations of the law. Specific examples include the South African Coloured vote constitutional crisis in the 1950s, the secession of the southern U.S. states in 1860 and 1861, the controversial dismissal of the Australian Federal government in 1975 and the 2007 Ukrainian crisis.

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Patriotic Society Party political party

The Patriotic Society Party, formerly the January 21 Patriotic Society is a populist and personalist political party in Ecuador, led by former army colonel Lucio Gutiérrez. 21 January refers to the date of the 2000 Ecuadorean coup d'état.

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Lenín Moreno President of Ecuador

Lenín Boltaire Moreno Garcés is an Ecuadorian politician who is the President of Ecuador, in office since 2017. He was Vice President from 2007 to 2013, serving under President Rafael Correa.

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PAIS Alliance political party in Ecuador

PAIS Alliance is an Ecuadorian center-left social democratic political party.

The Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly was a 2007–2008 constitutional assembly in Ecuador, which drafted the 2008 Constitution of Ecuador, approved via the Ecuadorian constitutional referendum, 2008.

2008 Constitution of Ecuador tengo la verga loka

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2010 Ecuador crisis

The 2010 Ecuador crisis took place on 30 September 2010, when elements of the National Police blockaded highways, occupied the National Parliament, blocked the Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito and the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil, and took over TV Ecuador's station, in what they claimed was a strike to oppose a government-sponsored law that supposedly reduced their benefits. Unrest and looting was reported in seven provincial capitals of the country due to the lack of law enforcement.

1997 Ecuadorian referendum

A fourteen-part referendum was held in Ecuador on 25 May 1997. Voters were asked whether they approved of the dismissal of President Abdalá Bucaram by the National Congress, the appointment of Fabián Alarcón as interim President for twelve months, the calling of a Constitutional Assembly, whether a Constitutional Assembly should be elected by direct elections or by appointment, whether spending limits should be introduced for election campaigns, whether voters should be able to modify electoral lists, whether National Assembly elections should be held alongside the first or second round of presidential elections, whether political parties that fail to cross the 5% threshold in two consecutive elections should be deregistered, whether the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) should reflect the political makeup of the National Congress, whether the National Congress should appoint managers of state-owned companies with a two-thirds majority, reforms to the justice system, allowing the Supreme Court to appoint judicial authority member, whether elected officials who commit a criminal offence should be removed from office, and whether the National Assembly should implement the 13 proposals. All eleven proposals were approved by voters.

2017 Ecuadorian general election elections

General elections were held in Ecuador on 19 February 2017 alongside a referendum on tax havens. Voters elected a new President and National Assembly. Incumbent President Rafael Correa of the PAIS Alliance was not eligible for re-election, having served two terms. In the first round of the presidential elections, PAIS Alliance candidate Lenín Moreno received 39% of the vote. Although he was more than 10% ahead of his nearest rival, Guillermo Lasso of the Creating Opportunities party, Moreno was just short of the 40% threshold required to avoid a run-off. As a result, a second round was held on 2 April. In the second round Moreno was elected President with 51.16% of the vote.

References

  1. "Ecuador faces institutional crisis". Transparency International. February 2005. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
  2. "Ecuador's political crisis deepens after president is given referendum warning" (Press release). Associated Press. 2007-03-11. Retrieved 2008-03-27.