CATEGORIES
Look Who's Linking to PoliBlog:
3cx.org
Absinthe and Cookies
Accidental Verbosity
Admiral Quixote's Roundtable
All Day Permanent Red
All Things Jennifer
Ann Althouse
The American Mind
Arguing with signposts
Arms and influence
The Astute Blogger
Asymmeterical Information
Attaboy
augustus
B-Town Blog Boys
BabyTrollBlog
Backcountry Conservative
Balloon Juice
Bananas and Such Begging to Differ
The Bemusement Park
Benedict
Bewtween the Coasts
Betsy's Page
The Big Picture
BipolarBBSBlog
BIZBLOGGER
bLogicus
Blogs for Bush
The Blog of Daniel Sale
BoiFromTroy
Boots and Sabers
brykMantra
BushBlog
The Bully Pulpit
Cadillac Tight
Caffeinated Musing
California Yankee
Captain's Quarters
Chicago Report
Chicagoland of Confusion
Citizen Smash
Coldheartedtruth
Collected Thoughts
The Command Post
Common Sense and Wonder
Confessions Of A Political Junkie
The Conservative Philosopher
Conservative Revolution
Conservative and Right
Cranial Cavity
The Daily Lemon
Daly Thoughts
DANEgerus Weblog
Dart Frog on a Cactus
Dean's World Dear Free World
Brad DeLong
Democracy Project
DiVERSiONZ
The Disagreeable Conservative Curmudgeon
Down to the Piraeus
Drink this...
Earl's log
Earthly Passions
The Education Wonks
the evangelical outpost
exvigilare
Eye of the Storm
Feste
Filtrat
Firepower Forward
The Flying Space Monkey Chronicles
The Friendly Ghost
FringeBlog
Fruits and Votes
Functional, if not decorative
G-Blog.net
The Galvin Opinion
The Glittering Eye
Haight Speech
Half-Bakered
The Hedgehog Report
Heh. Indeed.
Hellblazer
Hennessy's View
High Desert Skeptic
The Hillary Project
History and Perceptions
Robert Holcomb
I love Jet Noise
Idlewild South
Incommunicado
Independent Thinker
Insults Unpunished
Interested-Participant
Internet Ronin
Ipse Dixit
It Can't Rain All The Time...
The Jay Blog
Jen Speaks
Joefish's Freshwater Blog
John Lemon
johnrpierce.info blog
Judicious Asininity
Jump In, The Water's Fine!
Just On The Other Side
KeepinItReal
A Knight's Blog
The Kudzu Files
LeatherPenguin
Let's Try Freedom
LibertarianJackass.com
Liberty Father
Life and Law
David Limbaugh
LittleBugler
Locke, or Demosthenes?
LostINto
Mad Minerva
Gary Manca
Mark the Pundit
Mediocre but Unexciting
memeorandum
Mental Hiccups
Miller's Time
Mind of Mog
Minorities For Bush
Mr. Hawaii
The Moderate Voice
The Modulator
Much Ado
Mungowitz End
My opinion counts
my thoughts, without the penny charge
My Word
mypetjawa
Naw
Neophyte Pundit
Neutiquam erro
New England Republican
NewsHawk Daily
neWs Round-Up
NixGuy.com
No Pundit Intended
Nobody asked me, but...
Obsidian Wings
Occam's Toothbrush
On the Fritz
On the Third Hand
One Fine Jay
Out of Context
Outside the Beltway
Suman Palit
Parablemania
Passionate America
Brian Patton
Peaktalk
Pelicanpost
Peppermint Patty
Phlegma
John Pierce
PiratesCove
Politicalman
The Politicker
The Politburo Diktat
Political Annotation
Political Blog For The Politically Incorrect
Possumblog
Power Politics
Powerpundit.com
Practical Penumbra
Priorities & Frivolities ProfessorBainbridge.com
Prof. Blogger's Pontifications
Pros and Cons
protein wisdom
PunditFilter
Pundit Heads
QandO
The Queen of All Evil
Quotes, Thoughts, and other Ramblings
Ramblings' Journal
Random Acts of Kindness
Random Nuclear Strikes
Ranting Rationalist
Read My Lips
Reagan Country
Red State Diaries
Jay Reding.com
A Republican's Blog
Resource.full
The Review
Rhett Write
Right Side of the Rainbow
Right Wingin-It
Right Wing News
Right Voices
Rightward Reasonings
riting on the wall
robwestcott
Rooftop Report
RoguePundit
The Sake of Argument
Sailor in the Desert
Scrappleface
Secular Sermons
Sha Ka Ree
Shaking Spears
She Who Will Be Obeyed!
The Skeptician
The Skewed
Slant/Point.
Slobokan's Site O' Schtuff
small dead animals
Sneakeasy's Joint
SoCal Law Blog
A Solo Dialogue
Solomonia
Some Great Reward
Southern Musings
Speed of Thought...
Spin Killer
Matthew J. Stinson
A Stitch in Haste
Stop the ACLU
The Strange Political Road Trip of Jane Q. Public
The Strata-Sphere
Stuff about
Suman Palit
SwimFinsSF
Target Centermass
Templar Pundit
The Temporal Globe
Tex the Pontificator
Texas Native
think about it...
Tiger
Tobacco Road Fogey
Toner Mishap
Tony Talks Tech
The Trimblog
Truth. Quante-fied.
Twenty First Century Republican
Unlocked Wordhoard
Use The Forks!!
Ut Humiliter Opinor
Varifrank
VietPundit
Vista On Current Events
VodkaPundit
Vox Baby
Jeff Vreeland's Blog
Wall of Sleep
Weapons of Mass Discussion
Who Knew?
The Window Manager
Winning Again!
WizBang!
WizBang Tech
The World Around You
The Yin Blog
You Big Mouth, You!
Zygote-Design
Non-Blogs Linking to PoliBlog:
The Blogging Political Scientists Census-Beta Version can be found here.
Saturday, April 16, 2024
On the Ecuadorian Crisis and Courts in General
By Dr. Steven Taylor @ 7:34 am

Ecuador President Dissolves Supreme Court

President Lucio Gutierrez declared a state of emergency in the capital city of this Andean Mountain country and dissolved a Supreme Court he and his allies had appointed last winter, saying the unpopular judges were the cause of three days of pot-banging street protests in Quito.

Although they had opposed the court that was stacked by Gutierrez, his political foes immediately labeled its summary dissolution an act of a dictator.

Speaking in a televised address to the nation Friday night with his military high command standing behind him, Gutierrez said he was using the powers granted him by the constitution to dismiss the justices. In explaining their dismissal, he said opposition to their appointments was causing the protests.

Ecuador has been in a state of semi- political crisis for some time now, so I am not especially surprised by this news. The fundament of the entire story seems to be political corruption at the presidential level, over several presidents.

The court crisis was set in motion in November when the former justices sided with opposition politicians in a failed effort to impeach Gutierrez on corruption charges. Gutierrez then assembled a bloc of 52 lawmakers in the 100-seat unicameral congress, which voted in December to remove the judges. Legal experts said the vote ran contrary to Ecuador’s constitution.

Opponents say Gutierrez cut a deal with former President Abdala Bucaram to stack the Supreme Court and clear Bucaram of corruption charges as payback for key votes Bucaram’s political party provided last year blocking the impeachment drive against Gutierrez in congress.

The court cleared Bucaram of the charges and he returned to Ecuador earlier this month after eight years in exile.

In a bid to ease the political backlash, in late March Gutierrez proposed a judicial reform that would replace the new court and establish new methods for selecting judges. The legislature has not acted on the proposal.

And while it is not directly on subject, these kinds of events, which are far too common in Latin America (and the developing world in general), underscore the precious thing that we have in the United States with an independent, efficacious judiciary. Indeed, one of the most difficult institutions to develop in a new or struggling democracy, is the court system. They are typically weak, ineffective, and bound too deeply to the influence of the executive branch.

There are, no doubt, areas that warrant criticism of the federal court system, but it seems to me that the most vociferous of those critics (including some in the Congress) paint with too broad a brush when they attack the whole system, and call for radical reform (or even the impeachment of justices) over specific rulings. On balance, I don’t think that they know what we have, nor the damage that would be caused if judges were easily subject to the political passion of the day or easily removed because it fit the political whim of a politician at some specific moment in time.

3 Comments »

  • el
  • pt
    1. I disagree. The issue at hand in Ecuador’s case is not about having a strong judiciary. Ecuador has it… or at least had it until December 8, 2024 when Gutierrez party arranged for Congress to dismiss all the Supreme Court justices.

      Such dismissal was against the Ecuadorian constitution. Congress has no power to overthrow the Supreme Court.

      Ecuadorian Supreme Court justices are not even nominated by Congress or by the President. They are nominated by the court itself. They can be impeached for cause, just as in the United States. They usually remain in service until they retire.

      In conclusion, the assumption that this happened because of some sort of defect in the Ecuadorian judicial branch is false. Congress and the President are at fault here, have violated the Constitution and the country’s laws and must be held responsible for the situation.

      Comment by Beto South — Saturday, April 16, 2024 @ 8:53 pm

    2. There’s a great paper title here somewhere.

      “When the Pots Bang: The Intersection of Political Parties and Tupperware Parties.”

      Comment by John Lemon — Sunday, April 17, 2024 @ 12:36 am

    3. Beto:

      I didn’t say that the crisis itself was caused by the lack of strong judiciary–indeed, note the paragraph that starts “And while it is not directly on subject…”

      Nonetheless, the idea that Ecuador has a strong judciary, or that any Latin state has one, is simply not true. Some have made progress towards the development of a well functioning, indepedent judciary, but none have fully acheived that feat.

      My point was that the current griping about our “out of control” courts misses the point about what the alternative might be like.

      However, to pretend as if the court in Ecuador are are anything but pawns in this game is to ignore the facts. Indeed: as lovely a place as Ecuador is, it isn’t where I point for exemplars of institutional design and effectiveness.

      Comment by Steven Taylor — Sunday, April 17, 2024 @ 7:53 am

    RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

    The trackback url for this post is: http://poliblogger.com/wp-trackback.html?p=6785

    NOTE: I will delete any TrackBacks that do not actually link and refer to this post.

    Leave a comment



    Blogroll


    Visitors Since 2/15/03
    ---

    PoliBlog is the Host site for:

    A TTLB Community

    Powered by WordPress