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Ecuador The Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees
The TGC, rather than the CSJ, interprets and monitors
compliance with the Constitution. Located in Quito, the TGC
consists of eleven members and their substitutes, who serve for a
two-year period, without the possibility of reelection. Congress
appoints three TGC members who are nonlegislators and selects eight
others from lists submitted by the president, the CSJ, the mayors
and provincial prefects, the legal labor unions, and the Commercial
Associations. TGC members selected to represent the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches must not already be government
officials; they must be citizens by birth, in possession of their
rights of citizenship, over forty years of age, and doctors of
jurisprudence; and they must have fifteen years of professional
experience as lawyers, judges, or university professors in
jurisprudence. TGC members representing the workers, the Commercial
Associations, and the citizenry (such as the mayors and provincial
prefects) are required only to be citizens by birth and in
possession of their citizenship rights. The ministers of state, the
comptroller general, and the leaders of recognized political
parties may participate in TGC deliberations without voting rights.
The TGC's role has been secondary and temporary, and its
decision-making power weak. Salgado points out that the control of
constitutionality has been, in effect, entrusted to a largely
political organ, Congress, which lacks the requisite impartiality
for debating the unconstitutionality of laws, decrees, or
resolutions enacted by Congress itself. Although the 1979
Constitution failed to give the TGC enforcement authority, the 1983
constitutional reforms partly rectified this deficiency. Under the
1983 reforms, the TGC may demand the dismissal of officeholders who
violate TGC decisions, and the violators' superiors are obligated
to comply; request judges to initiate penal action; or report its
decision to Congress, which may act on it. The TGC may also suspend
those laws, decrees, accords, regulations, ordinances, or
resolutions that violate the Constitution. Nevertheless, it must
submit its decision to Congress or, in its recess, to the PCL, for
final resolution of the case of unconstitutionality. The PCL, for
its part, has had relatively broad powers to control
constitutionality.
The TGC has several other powers as well. During the recess of
Congress, the TGC is empowered to authorize any foreign travel by
the president and to revoke a state of national emergency. The Law
of Municipal Regime allows the TGC to rule on cases involving the
disqualification of municipal councillors (concejales
municipales), vacancies, or unconstitutional ordinances that
the Provincial Councils were unable to resolve. The Law of
Political Parties of 1978 and the Law of Elections of 1987 also
grant the TGC some electoral powers.
Data as of 1989
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