Eduardo Carmigniani
Guayaquil, Ecuador
The Constitutional Court has repeatedly rejected public entities -of all kinds- maliciously prolong judicial processes. It is, let’s say, an unstoppable current that must include not only the cases that reach that Court, but also radiate to the way of proceeding in any court, erasing from the culture of officials the supposed need to “exhaust” -so, literally- whatever appeal in theory could be raised so that the case does not conclude. And better if it ends in the period of the successor…
Record a first case regarding the SRI. In 2014, he filed an extraordinary protection action (AEP) against a decision of the National Court. And on August 4, 2021, with unanimous ruling 497-14-EP/21 (speaker, Grijalva), the Constitutional Court declared it null and void, saying that “…It is essential that public sector institutions carefully and thoroughly analyze the need for to keep constitutional processes open for a long time, to avoid generating unnecessary expenses to the judicial and constitutional apparatus…”. And then he called his attention “…so that in the future, it adapts its procedural actions before this Body in accordance with the principles of good faith and procedural loyalty” (paragraphs 50 and 51).
Then it was the turn of the Comptroller. With unanimous judgment 2398-17-EP/22, of November 16, 2022 (rapporteur, Lozada), the Court declared, regarding an AEP presented in 2017, that it was intended to “… distort the objectives of the extraordinary protection action and, furthermore, hinder the proper functioning of the administration of constitutional justice” (paragraph 28), also calling attention “…so that in the future it adapts its actions to the principles of good faith and procedural loyalty”.
On December 19, 2022, two more cases were resolved. One, in which the Latacunga Cleaning Company was put in its place for raising endless challenges to hinder the execution of an arbitration award (unanimous ruling 1639-17-EP/22, rapporteur, Corral). And another, in which he declared inadmissible an AEP raised by the Senae in 2018, with this harsh warning: “proposing a judicial action without real foundation regarding the violation of rights… …reveals the technical lack of judicial defense and, in the case of public entities involves the irresponsible and disrespectful use of public resources” (unanimous ruling 514-18-EP/22, rapporteur, Herrería).
Will they understand?
The post Malicious Litigation first appeared on La República EC.