The National Assembly of Ecuador approves a law that regulates the legitimate use of force by security forces

MADRID, 8 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Assembly of Ecuador has approved this Tuesday a bill that regulates the legitimate use of force in the country by the Police and the Armed Forces as a solution to delinquency and organized crime, as well as to guarantee citizen security. or face alterations in the country's prisons.

With 104 affirmative votes and 19 abstentions, the Ecuadorian Parliament has approved the project after three months of negotiations in which improvements have been made and the text has been specified on several occasions, especially with regard to the protection of the right to peaceful social protest, as reported by the Assembly itself in a statement.

In this sense, the president of the Assembly's Security Commission, Ramiro Narváez, has defended the section of the law that concerns the protests and has assured that the project is the result "of a methodological and technical work" and that is "in perfect conditions to be approved".

However, the Pachakutik political movement has refused to vote in favor of the project as it "seriously harms the right to social protest", one of the flags of the indigenous movement, as explained by its national coordinator, Marlon Santi.

"After the internal analysis and discussion of the Law on the Progressive Use of Force that is debated in the Legislative Plenary, the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement orders the Assembly Members' Bench not to pronounce in favor of the aforementioned legal body since it seriously harms the right to social protest, which has been one of the flags that Pachakutik has raised historically", the group has detailed.

On the other hand, the parliamentarians have declared that the law "by itself" does not constitute a solution to the problem of common delinquency, and have requested the Government to transfer appropriate resources to the Police.

"The legislators highlighted the need to establish State policies regarding respect for the Human Rights of all citizens, to adequately prepare police and military personnel in the progressive use of force, depending on how the conflict progresses and the danger that this represents for the life of the elements of order and third parties", the Ecuadorian Parliament specified in the letter.

The new text regulates specific contexts and circumstances in which the State security forces can make legitimate and exceptional use of force, regulates the procedures and reporting requirements that must be submitted in these cases, and establishes the regulatory framework for training, training and evaluation of servers subject to this law.