On November 7, the United Nations Human Rights Committee declared in a specialized report that the high level of corruption in the Ecuadorian justice system is worrying. The interest of this committee in the degree of corruption in the Ecuadorian justice system arose from the Plaga Case, which uncovered a corruption scheme involving judges, police, and lawyers with various criminal groups.
The UN Human Rights Committee wrote that it “remained concerned over reports of corruption affecting the judiciary, including allegations of bribes to judicial officials in exchange for favorable decisions, unjustified delays in proceedings and prison benefits for organized crime organization members, leading to public distrust.”
On the other hand, the committee greatly regrets that the State is incapable of protecting the lives of judges and prosecutors who are threatened by gangs and, in some cases, killed by them. These shortcomings in the justice system, according to the report, endanger the rule of law itself, as it corrupts one of the fundamental powers of the Ecuadorian state. In addition, the UN committee expressed concern about the perpetual state of militarization of prisons and the serious state of overcrowding in them, as well as the apparent normalization of the state of emergency that the president has repeatedly declared.
Nearly 9,000 leaked chats could compromise the impartiality of the judiciary
However, the UN report has not caused as much impact inside the country as the leak of almost 9,000 chats that were allegedly extracted from late journalist and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio’s cell phone. On August 9, during the electoral campaign, Ecuador witnessed on social media, the murder of Villavicencio, who at the time was a presidential candidate. The news shocked the whole country, which watched as the gangs imposed their law in the streets.
On November 6, Priscila Schetinni (current candidate to the Assembly) and Angélica Porras (candidate to the Constitutional Court) posted a link on social media to a file cache with thousands of conversations that supposedly came from the cell phone of the deceased Villavicencio, one of the most fierce opponents of Correism. Hours before their leak, the Attorney General’s Office informed that the device was in the hands of the FBI and content being published regarding the contents of the phone were false. However, Schetinni and Porras allege that Ecuador’s Attorney General, Diana Salazar, has had the contents of the chat since December 2023, but refused to do anything with them.
Several analysts and media outlets filtered through the messages and pointed out some concerning trends, raising serious doubts about the way justice is administered in Ecuador. Villavicencio, a public figure known in the country for his journalistic investigations and later as a member of the National Assembly, had conversations with many journalists, politicians, and prosecutors, some which would indicate that certain judicial accusations and cases seemed to be politically motivated and personally targeted.
In other words, if the conversations are proven to be true, it would demonstrate right now in Ecuador, the law is not applied according to an objective sense of justice, but rather to target and destroy the reputation and imprison individuals who are not sympathetic to certain political groups.
One such case is regarding the husband of Schettini, Freddy Carrión, the former Ombudsman who was imprisoned under charges of sexual abuse. Schettini maintains that he was one of the victims of this mechanism and that it was done in order to remove him from the Ombudsman’s Office for having denounced the brutality with which the State acted in the past anti-government protests. Porras, who was Carrión’s lawyer, has stated on several occasions that justice in the country depends on influence peddling and how several journalists and prosecutors share sensitive information through non-legal channels.
In this sense, both externally and internally, the Ecuadorian justice system is facing a question that casts doubt on the very probity of its existence. It is not expected that Noboa’s government will make the changes recommended by the UN. A few days ago, the Executive requested the withdrawal of the priority attention group status for those deprived of liberty. What is still unpredictable are the consequences these chats will have in Ecuadorian politics and justice, and given the upcoming elections, this could benefit or harm more than one political group.
