The former president Lenin Moreno intervened in the public debate on the case Jamil Mahuad with a message that reignited political tensions related to Parliament’s recent decisions Constitutional Court (DC). In a statement posted on his the penalty of eight years in prison for embezzlement related to the 1999 holiday remains.
Moreno opened his statement with a direct statement of solidarity without nuance. For him andThe procedure used by the Constitutional Court not only left procedural concerns, but also showed signs of a lack of openness. The former president questioned that Mahuad had not been heard at a hearing and that his queries had not received a formal response. From their point of view, this lack of opposing arguments creates a scenario that can be interpreted as a weakening of citizens’ trust in the institutional correctness of the procedures.
The former president also focused his concerns on the way the court organized its internal agenda. In his opinion that a solution of this magnitude was discussed in a meeting in which the case did not appear as a scheduled item reinforces the impression that the decision was taken in a context of urgency or under political pressure. In his message, Moreno pointed out that this type of action could be interpreted as a reaction motivated by institutional calculations rather than a duty to guarantee constitutional rights.
The Constitutional Court ruling on December 11 concluded that the right to due process was not violated by the ruling confirmed Mahuad’s criminal responsibility. In its analysis, the court concluded that the judicial authority responsible for resolving the cassation case explained the normative foundations and justified the connection between them and the facts under investigation. In doing so, he ruled out that there were deficiencies in the reasons for the judgment, which excluded the possibility of a constitutional review.
This result marked the end of a process that had been restarted weeks earlier when a constitutional judge ordered the collection of updated information from the National Court of Justice. The aim was to assess whether the defense’s arguments justified convening a public hearing before a decision was made. However, the analysis reached this point: the court concluded that the contested decision did not violate any guarantees and dismissed the appeal.
Moreno’s position brings political nuance to a file that has circulated primarily in the legal arena for years. Support for Mahuad –who has lived abroad for more than two decades and whose sentence is still pending– comes at a time when judicial independence is under public scrutiny. The former president’s statements refer not to the criminal content of the trial, but to the methodology with which the court handled this latest appeal, suggesting that transparency in deliberations was as important as the content of the resolutions themselves.
Although Moreno’s intervention does not change the former president’s legal status, it does influence public discussion about the functioning of the constitutional system. His criticism adds to a political environment in which some sectors have raised concerns about the way the court manages sensitive cases.
The Mahuad case remains one of the most controversial episodes in the country’s recent history, not only because of its economic and social impact, but also because of its lengthy legal process. The confirmation of the judgment and the conclusion of the constitutional complaint do not conclude the political interpretations arising from the proceedings.
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