Andean Group - September 2014 (ISSN 1741-4466)

Ecuador’s constitutional court has thrown out three separate legal challenges against the communications law approved in June 2013 and ratified by President Rafael Correa in mid-January. On 17 September, the court ruled that the law was entirely constitutional. This was the final court of appeal, meaning that there can be no further challenge to the controversial law, which the private media, supported by opposition politicians and academics, has criticised as a draconian measure specifically designed to restrict criticism of the government by curtailing freedom of expression.

The media regulator, Consejo de Regulación y Desarrollo de la Información (Cordicom), which was created under the new communications law, described the court’s resolution as “historic”, and said that it “breaks with a past of media concentration and opens the way to a change of epoch with a pluralist and democratic focus”. It argues that the sole purpose of the law is to ensure that everyone should be able to express their point of view under equal conditions, with equal opportunities.

Fundamedios, a local NGO, rejected the constitutional court’s resolution, arguing that it signified “the legal consecration of exceptionally serious setbacks for fundamental rights and liberties contained within the (communications) law.”

The law was challenged by 60 people from the world of journalism, civil society, the arts, culture and academia, and Luis Fernando Torres, a legislator for the opposition Movimiento Creo. The first challenge was made by Diego Cornejo, director of the Asociación Ecuatoriana de Editores de Periódicos, who denounced the court’s resolution as “a scandalous decision showing its affinity with the government, which weakens democracy in Ecuador”. He had argued that the new law has been applied to muzzle the press, slapping punitive fines on opposition media, demanding constant ‘rectifications’, and undermining freedom of expression.

A second challenge was brought by Farith Simon, a professor at the legal clinic of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, who said he was “not in the least surprised... as the court has favoured the government on almost every issue”; while Deputy Torres opposed the law on procedural grounds, insisting that various of the articles incorporated into the final version were never actually debated in the national assembly, and that “substantial modifications to what was debated” were also made.

Hoy falls silent

Ecuador’s national daily Hoy has ceased to be after 32 years of publishing. The regulator, Superintendencia de Compañías, stepped in, saying that Hoy would be wound up after making losses in excess of 50% of “social capital” for two consecutive years. The print version of Hoy had already been suspended on 29 June, but the online version fell silent on 26 August.

In one of the paper’s final editorials, the director of Hoy, Jaime Mantilla, blamed the tough strictures in the new communications law, which he said had made it difficult to find national investors, as well as “economic asphyxiation” from an advertising boycott by the State; and the cancellation of contracts to print school textbooks.

The chairman of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, who is editor of the Uruguayan weekly Búsqueda, accused the government of “conspiring against the public’s right to enjoy pluralist debate and access distinct points of view.” In July, Paolillo blamed President Correa for the collapse of the print version, maintaining, “This is no different to what other fascist governments have done throughout history”.

• Bonil

Ecuador’s most famous cartoonist, Xavier ‘Bonil’ Bonilla, became the first person to fall foul of the new communications law, on 31 January this year. The superintendent of information and communication, Carlos Ochoa, said a cartoon by Bonil published in the national daily El Universo on 28 December 2013 was defamatory, damaging the image of the attorney general’s office and the judicial police, and promoting social unrest.