Introducing into legislation the existence of “citizen juries” in the judicial system is one of the questions that could be asked of Ecuador through a popular consultation proposed during the campaign by the elected President of the Republic, Daniel Noboa Azín . The proposal to incorporate independent juries, which would have to be chosen at random, would aim to resolve trials in corruption and organized crime cases.

According to the legal definition, the jury system is the institution by which citizens without knowledge of the law and chosen by lot are summoned to participate in the administration of justice by rendering, after having held an oral trial, a verdict of innocence or guilt. of the person(s) prosecuted. The existence of juries does not eliminate the participation of jurisdictional judges who direct prosecutions.

Last Sunday, Verónica Abad, after learning that she was elected vice president of the Republic, asked the supporters of the National Democratic Alliance who accompanied her to receive the results of the second round if they agreed with the introduction of independent juries “to break corruption”. and the impunity of prosecutors and judges. With shouts they answered yes and the vice president told them that it would be part of the popular consultation that President Noboa Azín promised and that he will carry out.

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Since the end of 2022, the country has had a Unit for prosecuting crimes linked to corruption and organized crime. It is located in Quito, but has a national scope and has specialized judges to resolve 44 types of crimes: 37 related to organized crime and 7 to criminal figures linked to acts of corruption.

What the Noboa-Abad pair indicates is the most contemporary proposal for the jury system in Ecuador. The country spent almost 80 years under the jury trial system, between January 1848 and October 1928, until the government of President Isidro Ayora. At that time, the jury system emerged as a mechanism to combat corruption and a tool to speed up the administration of justice.

The professor and criminal expert Alfonso Zambrano Pasquel recalls on this subject that on the American continent there are experiences of jury systems dating back several hundred years, such as in the United States and Canada, as well as others which are relatively young and diligent. in Argentina and Brazil. . They all maintained different realities and presented ups and downs.

For example, in the United States, there is a constitutionally established jury system over 200 years old that coexists with a negotiated criminal justice system, called Abbreviated procedure. Faced with this reality, out of 100 existing cases, whether criminal or civil, only 5 or 7% of them are submitted to a jury formed by drawing lots with ordinary citizens; The rest would be resolved by negotiated justice, which would have allowed this country to maintain low percentages of prisoners without conviction.

According to Zambrano Pasquel, the American jury system has not always been effective, as there have been cases in which defendants have managed to influence juries, either through fear, money or pressure. media. In this system, the jury retires to deliberate and the decision must be unanimous, since it would be enough for one person to disagree with the decision for the jury to be dissolved and a new trial to be convened.

Something similar would be handled in the jury system applied in all provinces of Argentina, despite the fact that the constitution opens the door for citizens to participate in the administration of justice. It would have taken Argentina at least ten years to put this system in place, because citizen education is necessary, since the members of a jury are generally chosen from electoral lists.

“In the jury system, these are people who are not lawyers; These are the so-called “lay judges”, who do not know the law, but who must be trained in the scope of their obligations and have basic knowledge of how to assess the law.», notes the professor.

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In Brazil there would also be citizen juries that intervene in trials, but in this case the questions relate to the fact that the jury members are not allowed to deliberate, but that once the trial is over, it is the technical judge who presides over the case and asks the jury, “Is your opinion guilty or innocent?” The Brazilian system would be closed so that jury members would not be influenced.

Currently, in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela or Bolivia, the application of juries in trials does not exist as such, but initiatives have been taken over time aimed at implementing this tool given the need to speed up judicial processes, maintaining impartiality and the presumption of innocence of the suspect.

In systems in which the number of juries is applied, it would be considered an honor to be a member of one of them, not only because of the responsibility that this activity implies, but also because, in In some cases, the possibility of someone being a member of a jury and being summoned again is very remote, to the point that a citizen could be a member of a jury once in his life.

Zambrano Pasquel assures that it is not that the proposal for a citizen jury system in Ecuador is useless, but that it does not seem viable to him. “It’s not that I hate the jury system, but I don’t think the country is ready to take a big step toward such a reality. Furthermore, with a government (of Daniel Noboa Azín) of such a short duration (17 months), the consultation will take place after three or four months and, until the jury system can be structured, I do not think not that there will be enough time.

According to the president of the Pichincha Bar, Paúl Ocaña, to implement the jury system in Ecuador, it is necessary to take into account what is happening in the Anglo-Saxon system, whose archives date back more than a hundred years; but above all analyze what happened in Argentina, a neighboring country in which, he says, attempts were made to work with juries in certain provinces and this situation posed problems.

“We have to take into account that we are leaving this in the hands of people who are completely ignorant of the law and regulations, and they would be the ones who would be responsible for making decisions regarding a person’s freedom. My opinion is that it is quite complicated to achieve this approach, given the culture of our country. I think this idea of ​​the new government is not viable,” he stressed.

The possibility that this approach of “independent citizen juries” will be part of a popular consultation, which could be proposed to Ecuador during the first hundred days of Noboa Azín’s government, is not only in the hands of his supporters and their analysis, but also the Constitutional Court, when examining the question, defines that it is framed by the principles of our Constitution and international agreements, and that it does not violate any rights. (YO)