In the midst of the impeachment trial against him for an alleged crime of embezzlement, the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, decreed the dissolution of the National Assembly and with it, the end of his management as head of the executive. Cross death, as this legal figure is popularly known, is a mechanism that allows the executive and legislature to dissolve each other early to call elections. Lasso’s dissolution decree is based on a “serious political crisis and internal commotion”, one of the three causes that, in accordance with the current Constitution, allows invoking cross death and the only one that does not require the opinion of the Court Constitutional.
Cross death appeared for the first time in Ecuador with the promulgation of the 2008 Constitution, during the administration of former President Rafael Correa. Its two aspects, the dissolution of Congress by the president, contained in the Article 148, and the removal of the president by Congress, based on Article 130, may only be executed once during the period (executive or legislative) and during the first three years thereof. In the case of Lasso, the first president to apply this legal mechanism, the cross-death decree occurs a week before serving two years in office, which he has held since May 2021 and whose four-year term officially ends in 2025.
What next after the death cross in Ecuador?
After the decree of dissolution, the Constitution requires calling for legislative and presidential elections within a maximum period of seven days. The document signed by the president notified the National Electoral Council (CNE) of its obligation to call the following elections, which must be held on the same date and will decide the occupants of the positions for the rest of their respective periods. Both Lasso and the assembly members may stand for extraordinary elections, the first round of which will take place within a maximum period of ninety days after the call.
Once the National Assembly is dissolved and until the election of the new Congress, Lasso will maintain his position by decree for a maximum of six months, with the endorsement of the Constitution to issue urgent decrees and laws of an economic nature, which may be approved or repealed. by the newly created legislative body.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
Follow all the international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
#cross #death #Guillermo #Lassos #decree #dissolves #Congress #calls #elections #Ecuador