as part of what at that point had become the main opposition political party to the acting executive. 39. It is well known that every head of the Public Prosecutor's Office, as a hierarchical body representative of the interests of society, is the person who decides judicial policy regarding which criminal cases must be prosecuted over others and, in this aspect, has a decisive power of selection and organization of criminal prosecution. 40. Two individuals sentenced by these new temporary judges in the same proceedings (Bribery Case, to which I will refer below) in which the leader of the political opposition movement and the vice president of the executive who carried out the consultation and appointed to the Provisional Council, went to the United Nations, denouncing political persecution and anomalies that would affect judicial independence. 41. On July 9, 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers summarized the facts denounced by the alleged victims and requested explanations from the State, 13 given that they presented before the United Nations the context of institutional measures that, based on popular consultation, gave rise to the appointment of the Provisional Council. It was alleged that it would be a case of political persecution usually known as lawfare, in which the intervening judges would have been appointed with interference from the executive, in a particularly accelerated criminal process in the midst of the pandemic, with the aim of preventing the candidacy of the main opposition leader in the February 2021 elections and, it should be added, preventing his personal participation in the electoral campaign and also ability to use his voice, or the mention of his name during the campaign. 42. The Rapporteur states verbatim as follows: Messrs. Phillips Cooper and Fontana Zamora were parties prosecuted and criminally convicted in the framework of the investigation of the case known as "Bribes", which dealt with alleged cases of corruption committed during the government of the former President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado, where he, several of his officials and some businessmen, were prosecuted and sentenced. According to the source, it would be a case of political persecution given the improper use of the apparatus of justice administration, in order to issue a conviction to prevent the participation of Mr. Correa in the last elections of February 2021. 43. In response to the Rapporteur's request, the State admitted that, in effect, the Provisional Council, appointed by the executive based on the powers conferred by the consultation, on January 23, 2019 appointed the new principal members of the Council of the Judiciary and urged this body to proceed to the immediate evaluation of the judges and associate judges of the National Court of Justice. It is clear, then, that the State admitted that, through officials appointed by the Executive Power, it ordered a sort of purge of the Judiciary. 14 44. The Provisional Council would have interrupted the selection process convened by the Judicial Council appointed to fill vacancies, making it possible for the temporary judges to continue. Everything indicates that it would be a seriously harmful interference of judicial independence and the principle of the natural judge. 13 Request for information by the UN Special Rapporteur from the State of Ecuador, available at https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=26537 14 The information sent to the UN Special Rapporteur by the State of Ecuador, available at: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=36540 7