disproportionately affect personal liberty; v) all of the above-listed standards require a reason based on the individual’s particular circumstances and may not be based on presumption; vi) pretrial detention must be ordered for the strictly necessary period of time to fulfill the procedural purpose, which entails periodic review of the evidence giving rise to the appropriateness thereof; and vii) holding a person in pretrial detention is tantamount to an advanced sentencing to a jail term. 118 132. The Commission notes that Article 170 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ecuador provides for judges to order precautionary custodial measures only “in order to ensure the immediate participation of the accused in the proceedings,” while Article 177 provides that “when the [judge] deems it necessary,” he or she may order preventive detention provided that the following procedural requirements are met: a) evidence that leads to the presumption that a criminal offense warranting punishment of a prison term has been committed; and b) evidence that leads to the presumption that the defendant is the perpetrator of or accomplice to the criminal offense that is the subject of the proceedings. This same article also provides that “in the warrant, the evidence that is the grounds for the preventive detention order must be laid out in detail.”119 133. In the instant case, the Commission notes that the decision of the Twelfth Judge for Criminal Matters to issue the “order instituting trial proceedings,” and the preventive detention warrant of the alleged victims is based on acts that constituted “a punishable offense subject to investigation ex officio,” and that “all of the requirements of Article 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure” were met. 134. The Commission notes that Article 177 of the aforementioned Code established that the existence of evidence of responsibility and of a criminal offense punishable with a prison term were sufficient grounds to order a precautionary custodial measure of preventive detention. Therefore, this provision and any decision issued on these grounds are, in and of themselves, incompatible with the American Convention. This provision of the law essentially reverses the exceptional nature of preventive detention and makes it the rule, instead of the exception, in cases of offenses in which a punishment of deprivation of liberty is at stake, inasmuch as it is sufficient to order preventive detention if a crime is involved that is punishable with deprivation of liberty and there is “evidence of responsibility.” 135. Consequently, the Commission finds that the State violated the right of the victims not to be deprived arbitrarily of their liberty, as provided for in Article 7.3 of the American Convention in connection with the obligations established in Articles 1.1 and 2 of the Convention. 136. The Commission also notes that Mr. Eusebio Domingo Revelles remained arbitrarily deprived of his liberty throughout the entire criminal proceedings. In this regard, his preventive detention spanned more than four years, which is, more than twice as long as what he was sentenced to in the end. Article 114 of the Criminal Code, under which pretrial release was precluded for drug-related offenses, was in force for at least the first three years of his preventive detention.120 This provision of the code regulates preventive detention and the admissibility of motions for release and specifically lays out that “defendants standing trial for offenses punished under the Law on Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances are excluded from these provisions.” This particular provision, which was declared unconstitutional on December 24, 1997, made it possible to prolong indefinitely the preventive detention in criminal proceedings when these offenses were involved. 118 IACHR, Report on the Use of Pretrial Detention in the Americas, December 30, 2013, para. 21. Available at: http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/ppl/informes/pdfs/informe-pp-2013-es.pdf 119 Article 177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ecuador of 1983. (L. 134-PCL. RO 511: 10-jun-1983). See IA Court of HR, Case of Suárez Rosero v. Ecuador. Judgment of November 12, 1997. Series C No. 35, para. 146; Case of Chaparro Álvarez and Lapo Íñiguez v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 21, 2007. Series C No. 170, para. 104. 120In this regard, in the Constitutional Court Judgment ruling on the petition for habeas corpus relief filed by him, it was noted that said provision of the code was found unconstitutional in a decision published on December 24, 1997. See Annex 38. Constitutional Court, Second Chamber, Judgment of November 9, 1998. Annex to petitioner’s communication received on April 19, 1999. 33