Ecuador’s National Assembly has approved a report that recommends a political trial of Lasso

There National Assembly of Ecuador approved this saturday Report of one of the commissions charged with investigating the allegations acts of corruption of the president’s inner circle Guillermo Lasso and proposed impeachment for censure of the president.

The report on the case called “Meeting” -and also known as “Great Godfather”– obtained the green light with 104 votes for, out of the 125 members of the assembly present, and only 18 were against and three abstained, during the session open exclusively to the debate on the question raised by the Occasional Specialized Commission for Truth, Justice and Anti-Corruption.

The resolution was protected by numbers 1 and 2 of article 129 of the Constitution, which mentions the possibility of a political trial of the President for crimes “against the security of the state” the why “concussion, corruption, embezzlement (embezzlement) or illicit enrichment.” It also establishes that for this “the admissibility opinion of the Constitutional Court will be required, but prior criminal proceedings will not be necessary”.

Although this Saturday’s approval is only a suggestion there does not mean that the trial starts automaticallythis opens the way for a legislator to introduce Formal request of indictment. To do so, he needs the support of at least 46 other lawmakers.

The session began around 8:00 a.m. and lasted seven hours, during which the entire report was read and all 41 lawmakers spoke.

Already on Wednesday, the Commission had recommended to the plenary session of parliament that Lasso be questioned for the alleged acts of corruption for which he is being investigated, a position supported by six of the members and disputed by only one.

Commission investigates president for role in alleged affair state-owned enterprise bribery regime where businessmen such as Danilo Carrera, Lasso’s brother-in-lawthere Ruben CherresAnd man close to the ruling party which was also the subject of a police investigation for his alleged relationship with a drug ringalthough it has been archived.

Since Governmenthe denied Parliament’s progress on the case and have critical The report.

The government minister Henry Cucalon I declare that “Many voices across the country have repudiated this report, including people who criticize the government” and called the document “a tome that has neither head nor tail”. “For me it has no legal value, it is not binding”sentenced.

In any case, he mentioned that the National Assembly will be the one who will decide “to accept it or not and, even so, if this volume were to be known and approved, it must be motivated and argued in the presentation of impeachment trial”. .”

The progress of the Legislative Commission’s investigation comes at a time when the Lasso government is weakened after suffering a severe political blow on February 5, when it was defeated by the opposition in a referendum which the ruling party itself has promoted with key issues such as security, democracy and the environment.

(With information from EFE)

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