Justice denies resources and National Assembly will be

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador rejected on Thursday night (18) the appeals that questioned the decree of ‘cross death’ triggered by President Guillermo Lasso, a mechanism that dissolves the Legislative Power and calls new elections in the country.

Unanimously, the Court’s decision endorsed the dissolution of the National Assembly. Lasso’s decree took place on Wednesday (17) to avoid an impeachment process against him. The measure is provided for in the Ecuadorian Constitution and was used for the first time. The body issued six rulings against the requests that alleged the illegality of the decree, in addition to others that asked for the suspension of the “cross death”.

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According to the Constitutional Court, both the body and any other legal authority in the country do not have “competence to rule on the verification and motivation of the cause of the serious political crisis and internal commotion, invoked by the President of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly based on the Article 148 of the Constitution”.

This is because the “cross death” can be enacted in three scenarios: obstruction of Parliament against the government “in an unjustified and repeated manner”; the Legislative to assume functions that do not correspond to it; or political crisis and national commotion, as motivated by Lasso.

On Twitter, Lasso celebrated the Court’s decision by saying that the court “ratifies my decision” in accordance with Ecuador’s Magna Carta.

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The former banker continues to govern the country through decrees until a new election is held. According to the president of the National Electoral Council of Ecuador (CNE), Diana Atamaint, the body will choose a weekend in August to hold the elections.

There is a preliminary proposal in which the date of the first round will be August 20th, while a possible presidential second round would take place on October 15th. However, the decision will only be taken after a debate among all CNE ministers. The voting date should be announced by next Wednesday (24).