It’s been nearly three months since Ecuador President Daniel Noboa declared an internal war against armed groups operating in the country in an attempt to quell the recent escalation of violence. But a series of investigations has revealed how deeply entrenched organized crime has become in Ecuador’s highest levels of government, including its justice system.
The most recent corruption scandal came to light April 3, when officials raided homes and arrested 14 judges, lawyers and security officials across the country over their suspected connection with organized crime.
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A second crisis
But there’s another crisis facing Ecuador’s judicial staffers, he said: increased threats and assassination attempts for their work. In 2023, the Observatory of Rights and Justice counted four assassinations as well as 28 attacks — everything from attempted killings, bomb threats, direct threats and intimidations — against lawyers, judges and other judicial operators. The year before, six judicial staffers were killed.
Lack of security and state protection for judicial workers is a huge problem and a major driver of corruption, according to Judge Heidy Borja, former president of the Ecuadorian Association of Magistrates and Judges in the province of Guayas. Judiciary workers are more likely to succumb to corruption when faced with threats to work for organized crime or face potential death if they know there are no adequate safeguards to protect them, she said.
Borja received a threat in 2022 when one armed group demanded she work for them and rule in their favor for current and future trials. They threatened to put a bomb in her car if she refused and named several of her family members, which was terrifying, she said. She denounced the threat and now has security guards who follow her everywhere, but not everyone has access to this kind of security or can wait through the long bureaucratic process of getting it approved.
“Criminals are taking advantage of the fact that there is no system of protection for judges,” Borja said. “To think about attacking and combating corruption, to think about reducing violence in the justice system, you have to first protect the system.”
Sources
Ecuador’s justice system awash with corruption and death threats
