{"id":8655,"date":"2021-01-03T11:06:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T16:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/?p=8655"},"modified":"2021-01-03T11:25:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T16:25:04","slug":"high-court-rules-state-of-emergency-unconstitutional-says-pandemic-conditions-do-not-warrant-restrictions-cuencahighlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/high-court-rules-state-of-emergency-unconstitutional-says-pandemic-conditions-do-not-warrant-restrictions-cuencahighlife\/","title":{"rendered":"High court rules state of emergency unconstitutional; Says pandemic conditions do not warrant restrictions – CuencaHighLife"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Source: High court rules state of emergency unconstitutional; Says pandemic conditions do not warrant restrictions – CuencaHighLife<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Ecuador\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled Saturday night that the government\u2019s current state of emergency is unconstitutional. The 30-day emergency was declared by President Len\u00edn Moreno on December 20 based on fears that holiday events and a new, more contagious Covid-19 variant would lead to increased cases of the virus and overload the country\u2019s healthcare system.<\/p>\n

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Ecuador\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled Saturday night that the current state of emergency is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Among other things, the state of emergency imposed a nationwide nighttime curfew, put restrictions on the operation of private vehicles and the sale of liquor, and restricted all gatherings to less than 10 people.<\/p>\n

The court ruled that the emergency order was a violation of civil liberties that \u201cdid not conform to constitutional standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of legal and health experts had predicted the court\u2019s decision when Moreno declared the emergency, claiming pandemic conditions are improving in Ecuador and that the order was based on unsubstantiated projections. They pointed out that the number of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths has been in steady decline since July.<\/p>\n

Business organizations applauded the court\u2019s decision but expressed regret that it did not come sooner. \u201cIt\u2019s the correct response but we needed it two weeks ago,\u201d says Jaime Iglesias, spokesman for a Quito association of restaurant and hotel owners. \u201cThe declaration shut down our business for Christmas and New Years and was the nail in the coffin for many or our members. Now we hear that the government\u2019s action was illegal but the news comes too late for many.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Quito attorney Andr\u00e9 Benavides agrees, and says Moreno\u2019s reason for the emergency order was questionable from the beginning. \u201cThis is definitely the proper decision,\u201d he says. \u201cThe court made it clear in August that it would not grant a new declaration and recognized the need for a return to a level of normalcy to provide employment and business opportunities to the population,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Trend of new Covid-19 cases in Ecuador since July. Numbers on the top are new cases per week. Numbers at the bottom indicate weeks since the pandemic was declared in March.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many medical professionals also questioned the basis for the emergency order. \u201cThe government says \u2018follow the science\u2019 but in this case they clearly did not,\u201d says Pa\u00fal C\u00e1rdenas, professor of microbiology and researcher at the San Francisco de Quito University. \u201cThe pandemic conditions in Ecuador are improving and the numbers \u2014 and the science \u2014 prove it so why introduce new restrictions? They cannot be justified.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its decision, the high court said \u201c\u2026 it is not indifferent to the consequences of the response capacity of the public health system if the trend of hospitalization continues to increase, nor to the seriousness of the possible effects of the new mutation of the viruses, referred to in the decree in question.\u201d It added, however, that the government did not provide the \u201cproper justification\u201d to deny citizens their civil liberties.<\/p>\n

The court added that the government is justified in all efforts to implement and enforce rules that protect the public health as long as they do not infringe on constitutional rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: High court rules state of emergency unconstitutional; Says pandemic conditions do not warrant restrictions – CuencaHighLife Ecuador\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled Saturday night that the government\u2019s current state of emergency is unconstitutional. The 30-day emergency was declared by President Len\u00edn Moreno on December 20 based on fears that holiday events and a new, more contagious … Continue reading High court rules state of emergency unconstitutional; Says pandemic conditions do not warrant restrictions – CuencaHighLife<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8659,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655\/revisions\/8659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esterlund.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}