COVID - 19 AND THE INTENSIFICATION OF PUNITIVE POWER IN ECUADOR

Manuscrito recibido: 18/08/2020 Aceptado: 21/04/2021

Abstract

Through Executive Decree No. 1017, of march 16, 2020, President Lenin Moreno decreed a state of exception in the Ecuadorian territory in order to stop the spread of COVID-19, for which several emerging measures were established: the limitation to various fundamental rights such as freedom of movement, of association and of free assembly; the public force was mobilized to guarantee order; the face-to-face work day was suspended; and, a mandatory community quarantine and curfew were imposed. To reinforce compliance with the decreed state of exception, an extremely serious and unreasonably intense punitive intervention was enabled, by establishing that disrespect for quarantine and a curfew entailed the presumption of automatic committing of the crime of non-compliance with legitimate decisions of the competent authority, provided for in article 282 of the Integral Organic Criminal Code. This generated several criminal prosecutions, the imposition of preventive imprisonment and arbitrary intramural penalties, established outside the guarantees of due process typical of a constitutional State of rights. The serious affectation of the elementary principles of criminal law, such as the presumption of innocence, material injury and criminal law, are evidence of the use of the state of exception outside of the constitutional limits, in frank detriment to the freedom of many citizens who are currently in prison and arbitrary prosecutions