Ecuador's President Noboa marches against suspension of security measures
By Alexandra Valencia
QUITO (Reuters) -Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa on Tuesday led a march against a decision by the constitutional court to temporarily suspend provisions in recently-passed security laws, in what critics have said is an attempt to curtail judicial independence.
Noboa has said the march was intended to preserve vital efforts to combat crime gangs, but detractors say he is interfering with judicial independence and trying to pressure judges to accept all his government's reforms.
The court backed the suspensions after rights groups argued the measures, including immunity for security force members investigated for misconduct, a provision obliging telephone service providers to hand over certain information and changes to banking cooperatives could conflict with citizens' rights.
"We are here to seek justice and to seek peace, we are not here to run over anyone, we follow the mandate of the people," said Noboa, speaking into a megaphone at the march.
Noboa's National Democratic Action party controls the legislature, where the three laws containing the provisions were approved in June.
One billboard along the route featured the names and photos of the nine justices in the constitutional court with the text: "These are the judges who are stealing our peace. They signed against laws that would protect us".
Noboa's spokesperson said that billboard and others were not paid for by the government.
"We are not going to permit change to be halted because of nine people who don't even show their face, who want to hide their names and their faces from society," added Noboa, dressed in a black anti-ballistic vest over a dark T-shirt.
Ecuador's constitution prevents supreme court justices from speaking publicly about cases before them.
The signage increases security risks for the judges and directly affects the court's independence, the court said in a statement, also decrying changes to security provisions for its headquarters on Tuesday, which marchers passed yelling "out corrupt judges!".
Debate on the suspended measures should take place at public hearings scheduled to begin next week, the court added.
A United Nations special rapporteur for justice, Margaret Satterthwaite, has expressed concern the court could be pressured by other powers in Ecuador and said judges must be free to work without threats.
Noboa has deployed the army on the streets in a bid to curb violence, while pushing measures like increased sentences for drug trafficking.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
24 minutes ago
- New York Times
Trump Wants to Fight Democrats on Crime. They're Treading Cautiously.
With his efforts to take control of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., this week, President Trump has pushed the issue of crime back to the foreground of American politics. In doing so, he's invited a fight with Democrats, who are treading cautiously as they seek to forcefully oppose the federal incursion into the nation's capital, something no president has ever attempted, without getting caught up in a debate over public safety on Mr. Trump's terms. Mr. Trump and his Republican allies wielded the sharp increase in violent crime in urban areas during the pandemic as a campaign cudgel, winning control of the House in the 2022 midterms. Mr. Trump expanded his winning coalition two years later, in part with promises to prevent the rest of America from becoming like the cities he called 'unlivable, unsanitary nightmares,' deriding the data that showed improvement across the country. While his tactics in Washington, D.C., are extraordinary, the effort is an actualization of one of his most tried-and-true political arguments: Democrats — often Black Democrats — have let lawlessness run rampant in the cities and states they were elected to run. At a moment when Mr. Trump's approval ratings even among his supporters are declining, he appears to be laying the groundwork for Republicans to once again weaponize the issue in the midterm elections. Mr. Trump has sent National Guard troops to patrol the streets, turned federal law enforcement officers into beat cops and sought to put the local police department fully under his administration's control. And the president has suggested he wants to bring his brand of law and order to Chicago; Baltimore; Oakland, Calif.; and New York, all liberal cities in blue states, while avoiding any mention of high-crime cities in red states, like Memphis or St. Louis. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
News24
24 minutes ago
- News24
Ward councillor's legal action spurs probe into complaints of poor service at Maitland SAPS
A lawyer's letter sent to the Western Cape police commissioner by Maitland residents and their ward councillor has prompted an investigation into the alleged poor service at the local police station. Two weeks ago, residents protested outside the Maitland police station demanding that the station commander, his management team and 'nonchalant' staff be removed as crime continues to escalate. They also lobbied for the police station to 'immediately stop' shutting its doors after hours, making it nearly impossible for the community to seek assistance at those times. The police denied that the station was not operational after hours. At the time of the protest on 27 July, ward councillor Cheslyn Steenberg handed over a memorandum to a representative of Western Cape police commissioner Thembisile Patekile with a list of demands, and indicated that a response was needed within 14 days otherwise legal action would follow. In the memorandum, residents expressed concern at the lack of visible policing, inactive crime prevention and uncontrolled crime. The residents said they were living in fear. The 14-day deadline passed without a response from Patekile, prompting Steenberg to send a lawyer's letter to the commissioner, demanding the immediate removal of the current Maitland police station commander, among other things. 'Not only was it very disrespectful of the police commissioner to not even acknowledge receipt of the memorandum, but we have not been given any update [on] what will be done to remedy the concerns we are facing,' said Steenberg. 'We [gave him] seven days to react to this letter or we will see him in court. No time for jokes, our lives matter! Our ward matters and we matter,' said Steenberg. He said it was only when legal action was taken that Patekile responded to residents' concerns. Some of their demands included: The immediate removal of the current Maitland police station commander; A full review of the station's operational performance and a public report back on the measures to improve the station; and Increased visible policing and police accountability. On 13 August, Patekile wrote back to Steenberg, saying: 'This office had undertaken an investigation process for all the allegations. The investigations are still continuing.' However, the police visibility has been increased through deployment of district police task teams,' read Patekile's response. Patekile said the police were engaging with the community policing forum to improve community relations. Western Cape police spokesperson, Brigadier Novela Potelwa, said: 'The concerns raised about the precinct and its policing require further engagement with the affected community's role-players on board.' 'The office of the provincial commissioner recognises the role that various stakeholders play in policing matters. In relation to internal matters, they are currently being attended to as a matter of urgency,' said Potelwa. While residents have welcomed the investigation into the Maitland police station, some have questioned why legal action had to be taken before the South African Police Service (SAPS) intervened. READ | 'Keep the suspect until tomorrow': Residents claim Maitland SAPS shuts up shop at 17:00 'It's quite sad that our ward councillor had to go down this legal route to get some sort of outcome from the commissioner. We just want to feel safe in the area where we live,' said resident Merlin Jacobs. Another resident, Caleb Jansen, asked: 'How will we get crime under control if our police stations are closed to the public after hours? It's insane and a violation of the oath they (police) took to serve and protect their country.' In response, the police said, 'After office hours, most of our police stations implement access control, and Maitland SAPS is no exception.' 'These measures are in place to ensure the safety of our members and should not be interpreted as the closure of a police station,' police said. Steenberg said if Patekile didn't respond to the community's memorandum this week, he would 'see him in court'.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
What would happen if America started faking its economic data? Here's what happened when other countries did it
Donald Trump South America InvestingFacebookTweetLink Follow Lying to your lenders is a bad enough idea when you're an individual. It's even worse when you're a country. That's the specter critics of President Donald Trump have raised after he fired the head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics this month after disappointing jobs data. While there's no indication the data has been rigged (assertions from the White House aside) – or will be rigged in the future – the White House's nomination of a partisan to lead the government's economic data agency was enough to worry global economic and financial circles. There's historical precedent for that fear. Countries like Greece and Argentina have been both been punished by investors for putting out manufactured numbers in the past. 'President Trump has just taken one very negative stop along a slippery slope,' Alan Blinder, a former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, told CNN. 'The next worry is going to be manipulation' of data. At stake is the health of an economy relied upon by nearly every person on earth, directly or indirectly. The US economy affects everyone from Americans in glitzy Manhattan skyscrapers to, quite literally, garbage pickers living in developing nation slums. But while Greece famously faked its way into the European Union and Argentina to this day remains embroiled in legal fights over its own sham numbers, there key differences here: The US economy is the world's biggest, buoyed by its global dominance and its years of strength. The Trump administration says firing Erika McEntarfer wasn't about politics but was instead about making BLS data more rigorous and accurate. 'Historically abnormal revisions in BLS data over the past few years since COVID have called into question the BLS's accuracy, reliability, and confidence. President Trump believes that businesses, households, and policymakers deserve accurate data to inform their decision-making, and he will restore America's trust in the BLS,' said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers in a statement to CNN. Still, economists warn, the United States is at something of a crossroads now, waiting to see what happens to data series that economists have praised as the gold standard, even if many agree that model updating and modernization could make major improvements to the data's accuracy. 'There's no substitute for credible government data,' said Michael Heydt, the lead sovereign analyst at rating agency Morningstar DBRS. In 2004, Greece confessed it had faked numbers on its national deficit and debt to qualify for entry into the eurozone in 2001. But the number-fudging didn't end there. Appointed to Greece's statistical agency in 2010, economist Andreas Georgiou made a bold decision: He worked to publish deficit numbers that aligned with reality. After years of untrustworthy numbers that made the idea of official Greek data a global punchline, his efforts were downright startling. What followed were years of legal fights, and he was prosecuted for allegedly inflating the country's deficit figures. Even the EU itself condemned Greece for the false data. The fakery made the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 significantly worse in Greece. Lenders, skittish of what Greece's actual public finances might be, shied away, demanding increasingly higher rates to hold Greek bonds. Austerity measures demanded by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to bail out Greece angered everyday citizens. Pictures of Greeks rioting in the streets, burning cars and expressing their rage, underscored the dangers. In Argentina, accusations of untrustworthy inflation and economic growth data have dogged Latin America's third-largest economy for decades, scaring off investors despite a wealth of natural resources. Then-President Nestor Kirchner demoted the person in charge of preparing inflation data because she (correctly) reported surging prices in 2007. Everyone from ordinary citizens to global investors treated official inflation data as suspect for years after. That contributed to the country's credit ratings staying in junk territory for years – one of the factors investors typically cite to charge a country more to loan it money. (In Argentina's case, previous sovereign defaults were also a major factor. The unreliable inflation data, after all, did not happen in a vacuum.) That matters to ordinary people because short- and long-term debt, whether from a federal government down to tiny cities and towns, can help fund everything from new schools to roads to essential services. When lenders turn off the money spigot – or charge dearly for access – that means regular people ultimately pay the price. But the United States is far from replicating either scenario, said Robert Shapiro, the chairman of economic advisory firm Sonecon and a former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs under President Bill Clinton. When the data was revealed to be fake in both Greece and Argentina, those economies were already in terrible shape, Shapiro pointed out. 'So the impact of the markets no longer being able to rely on the data was a little less because the markets were already backing away from investment and employment.' The US economy is growing, hitting a relatively robust annualized rate of 3% in the second quarter. And at over $30 trillion, the US economy has a heft that both Greece and Argentina lack. 'We're the largest economy in the world. We are by far the greatest financial center in the world,' Shapiro said. Trump fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shortly after the August 1 jobs report showed sharply slower jobs growth than expected for July – and significant downward revisions to data from June and May. Trump accused McEntarfer, without evidence, of manipulating the reports for 'political purposes.' Analysts begged to differ. The US is 'a world leader in providing high-quality data,' Heydt said. 'The BLS in particular is kind of a world class institution… The US for a long time has been kind of the gold standard for data.' William Beach, a former Trump BLS commissioner, told CNN previously that 'there's no way' for McEntarfer or others to rig the data. 'By the time the commissioner sees the number, they're all prepared, they're locked into the computer system,' he said. 'There's no hands-on at all for the commissioner.' But large revisions in the bureau's data have raised eyebrows, not just this month, but in the past as well. A preliminary annual revision in August 2024, for example, showed the US economy had added 818,000 fewer jobs over the past year than previously reported. Those kinds of large revisions might suggest deeper issues, like how the BLS gets their data and constructs their economic models, said Kathryn Rooney Vera, the chief market strategist and chief economist at financial services company StoneX. 'Several economists and research teams I personally engage with have flagged these as structural issues with the data long before Trump's involvement or the firing of the BLS chief,' Rooney Vera told CNN. And Shapiro noted another wrinkle: budget cuts. Already the BLS has said it will cut back on collecting some data because it has fewer people. That, in turn, means it can take longer to get to final numbers for data releases. In the case of the jobs report, big companies usually respond with information first. Smaller companies tend to trail. 'And so you get a lot of responses that come in after the date when the initial estimate is put out,' he said, leading to revisions. Still, the US has other sources of data, both public and private, to round out a fuller picture of the economy. Shapiro pointed to the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. 'These institutions are made up virtually 100% by statisticians and economists,' Shapiro said. 'They're utterly nonpolitical in their jobs.'
