Ecuador - June 2025

On 10 June, the Organic Law of National Solidarity entered into force. The law seeks to put in place legal and fiscal measures to strengthen security forces, curb the financing of organized crime and improve citizen safety. The law allows the president to pardon members of the security forces prosecuted for acts committed during an 'armed conflict,' and exempts them from measures like pre-trial detention, enabling them to continue serving while under investigation—raising concerns about impunity and lack of oversight for potential abuses. Further, it grants the president the ability to declare the existence of an internal armed conflict, and defines ‘armed groups’ and ‘military objectives’ loosely. According to humanitarian law and rights experts, these broad definitions are contrary to international standards, and imperil civilians and civilian space, lowering the threshold of when a target becomes a legitimate military objective. The law has been challenged before the Constitutional Court.  

Sources: National Assembly, El Comercio, Human Rights Watch (1), Human Rights Watch (2)  

New legislation establishing a national intelligence system was passed by the National Assembly and entered into force in June, with civil society sounding the alarms about potential threats to civil liberties. The law creates a Strategic Intelligence Center and intelligence subsystems in areas such as the police, military, finance, customs and the penitentiary system, which will coordinate for national security purposes. Rights experts have expressed concerns over several provisions that will enable intelligence officials to gather sensitive information, such as mobile phone data, real-time and past information on mobile location and connections without a judicial order or other oversight and control mechanisms. The potential chilling effect of this legislation has also been raised by press freedom advocates, who fear officials could surveil private communications of journalists working on high-profile investigations involving government officials.

Sources: Primicias, Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa, El Comercio, CNN