40
a legal prohibition, constituted a discriminatory treatment, since the other
members of the prison population, detained for crimes not classified in the drug
law, could be freed immediately after the dismissal of the accusations.”
ARGUMENTS OF THE REPRESENTATIVES
129. Regarding Article 2 of the Convention the representatives adopted the
arguments presented by the Commission as their own and also indicated that:
a)
the order of the Judge to immediately release the alleged victim derived
from the dismissal of the accusations presented against him on December 3,
1993, “was not executed, since Article 121 of the Law on Narcotic and
Psychotropic Substances stated that the release order could not be complied
with until the prior proeeding of request of the opinion of the [Superior Court] is
fulfilled. This provision was applied only and exclusively to the persons
processed for crimes related to drug trafficking;”
b)
“the judiciary branch and the State through the Judge of Criminal
Matters of Lake Agrio decided to apply against [the alleged victim] a [l]aw that
was not applicable to him. In effect, with the objective of a[voiding] that Mr.
Acosta [Calderón] recover his freedom, the cause was referred to a Higher
Court for their opinion and the release order was suspended. The request of
opinion and suspension of the release set forth in the order of dismissal was not
applicable to a process initiated before the Law on Narcotic and Psychotropic
Substance (the same that came into force in September of 1990) came into
force;”
c)
“in Ecuador there is a political determination to discriminate the
detainees for crimes related with drug trafficking and under this context Mr. […]
Acosta Calderón was a victim of this policy and of laws that permit
discrimination;”
d)
the State violated Article 2 of the Convention in detriment of Mr. Acosta
Calderón “by enacting and maintaining legislation that causes inequality before
the law and imposes a regimen of discrimination in detriment of a category of
defendants;”
e)
the laws in force at the time of the facts, as well as Law 04, which
introduced an additional Article after Article 114 of the Criminal Code
(hereinafter “Article 114 bis”) established that those tried for crimes determined
in the Law of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances were to be excluded of the
benefits of this law;
f)
the Constitutional Court of Ecuador declared the unconstitutionality of
Article 114 bis of the Criminal Code of December 16, 1997. However, even
when this rule was declared unconstitutional, on December 18, 1997 an
amendment was introduced in the Code of the Execution of Judgments in which
a discriminatory stipulation in detriment of the same “category of defendants”
was included;
g)
on one hand Ecuador established “limitations to the right to a judicial
recourse and the development of the recourse outside of the limits established
in the Convention […] and, on the other hand, when the facts occurred, […] it