Direct Democracy and the Government of Constitutional Judges

Abstract

The Ecuadorian legal system has undergone several modifications in relation to popular consultation by citizen initiative. First, on December 21, 2015 one of the constitutional amendments has limited the scope of popular consultation. Second, the precedents of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador have established general rules regarding the popular consultation procedure by citizen initiative. Third, the Constitutional Court has issued a regulation that alters the accounting of terms of the popular consultation procedure.

When the laws are clear and precise, the function of the judge is only to prove a fact . However, all the modifications have been made directly and indirectly by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador. So, the legislator has not issued clear and precise norms? Independent of that, the Constitutional Court, searching to clarify and specify normative precepts, has occasioned restrictions on the rights to citizen participation, obstacles to the exercise of direct democracy and uncertainty in the popular consultation instead.

In this way, three fundamental points will be analyzed. First, the scope of the popular consultation has been limited by virtue of a constitutional amendment restricting the right of citizen participation. Secondly, through compulsory jurisprudence, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador has established that constitutional control is carried out after the collection of signatures, leading to citizens taking the risk of devoting economic and physical efforts to collect signatures with uncertainty that the questions are constitutional. This has led to hindering and ineffectiveness of the popular consultation procedure. Finally, the Constitutional Court, through its regulations, has changed the counting of deadlines and terms by shielding itself from the deadlines established in the constitution. Thus, all the actions of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador have led to a clear government of the judges.