CEJIL expresses concern for Ecuador’s behavior on the Sarayaku judgment

Sarayaku, Quito, Washington D.C., Tuesday, May 20, 2014. The Kichwa Community of Sarayaku and its representatives before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Dr. Mario Melo Cevallos and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), express their concern about the public declarations made by civil servants of the Ecuadorian government that indicate that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice met on May 14, 2014 in San José, Costa Rica with the leadership of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to discuss matters related to the compliance with the sentence of the Sarayaku case, emitted by the Court on June 27, 2012.

If this information is confirmed, the State would have presented ex parte information in a contentious case under supervision of the Court without the presence of the other parties to the proceedings, and without allowing them the opportunity to reply at the same time and in equal conditions.

This attitude of the Ecuadorian government is contrary to Article 69 of the Inter-American Court’s Rules of Procedure, which indicates that the monitoring of the enforcement of the sentences is performed through adversarial proceedings, through which the parties (victims, State and Inter-American Commission) present written reports, and through which the Court can convene all parties for public and private hearings to obtain information.

Therefore, the representatives of Sarayaku have asked the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to confirm whether the information made public by Ecuador is true.

Similarly, the Sarayaku representatives are requesting a hearing to be able to offer the Honorable Court the information that it needs with respect to the degree of compliance by the Ecuadorian government in the sentence emitted in 2012 in favor of the Sarayaku.

Press Contact

Daniela Araya

+506 22807473

daraya@cejil.org