Years of neglect have left the justice system racing against deadlines, vacancies and organized crime.

The decision to assign as many as 200 police officers to Ecuador’s courts has made visible a crisis that extends far beyond courthouse doors. Judges, prosecutors and judicial employees are facing direct threats, while the institution responsible for keeping the justice system operating is also struggling with obsolete technology, deteriorating buildings, hundreds of empty positions and disciplinary cases that could disappear because legal deadlines have run out.

The security agreement, signed July 9th by Judicial Council President Mercedes Caicedo and Interior Minister John Reimberg, will place officers at judicial complexes, base units, the National Court of Justice and other sites selected according to risk. It follows the discovery on June 24th of an explosive device and threatening messages outside the North Judicial Complex in Quito. Police deactivated the device, but the episode reinforced a warning already circulating through the courts: organized crime is not only attempting to influence judicial decisions; it is also testing whether the state can protect the people who make them.

For Caicedo, who took control of the Judicial Council in late April and began working in the post in May, the physical danger is one part of a broader institutional emergency. About 70 days into her administration, she described the condition of the council as “structural damage” produced by years of postponed decisions, weak investment and incomplete selection processes. The immediate challenge is to keep the system functioning. The larger one is to rebuild public confidence while confronting failures that accumulated over roughly 15 years.

Security moves to the courthouse entrance

The three-year agreement with the Interior Ministry does not guarantee that 200 officers will be deployed at once or distributed evenly. The number and placement of personnel will depend on National Police risk reports, local needs and operational availability. Judicial sites facing the greatest danger are expected to receive priority, and the arrangement will be reviewed every six months so authorities can increase, reduce or redirect the deployment.

The stated goal is to protect judges, prosecutors, court employees and members of the public without compromising the independence of the justice system. That distinction is important in a country where courts are being asked to process cases involving criminal organizations while avoiding both intimidation and political interference. The Judicial Council has presented the agreement as a security partnership rather than a transfer of authority: police will protect the facilities, but judicial officials will remain responsible for the decisions made inside them.

“Justice cannot function in fear,” Caicedo said at the signing, arguing that independence and integrity depend in part on whether officials can enter their workplaces safely. Reimberg framed the agreement as a necessary link between security policy and criminal prosecution, saying the fight against organized crime requires the justice system and law enforcement to act in coordination.

Yet armed protection cannot repair the weaknesses waiting behind the security checkpoints. The council inherited aging computer systems, limited investment funds and a national network of offices whose equipment, furniture and vehicles have often gone years without replacement. Caicedo’s administration is trying to address those deficiencies while simultaneously deciding disciplinary cases, organizing a new competition for National Court judges and preparing to defend its budget for 2027.

An institution operating on aging foundations

One of Caicedo’s first actions was to request a special examination by the Comptroller General’s Office. The request, made on the third day of her tenure, was intended to establish how certain council activities had been handled before her arrival and to identify responsibility where public resources or administrative duties may have been neglected.

Her diagnosis begins with a long pause in recruitment and renewal. The last major process cited for selecting judges across the system dates to 2015, and the country has gone years without the evaluations and staffing competitions needed to replace departures and fill new needs. At the National Court, the most recent selection process concluded in 2021. Since then, vacancies and failed competitions have prevented the staggered renewal required under the Constitution.

The technological picture is similarly dated. The Automated Judicial Procedure System, known as Satje, entered service before 2014 and remains central to the handling of cases. Court records still need broader digitization, and the council wants to develop a new version, Satje 2.0, capable of supporting a judiciary that now faces larger caseloads, more complex evidence and greater security demands than the system was originally built to manage.

Instead of purchasing a replacement platform, the council’s information and communications technology staff are developing the update internally. The approach reflects both financial necessity and an attempt to use existing personnel to advance projects included in the institution’s 2022-2031 strategic plan. It may reduce contracting costs, but it also places pressure on a department working within the same constrained structure it is being asked to modernize.

The need is not limited to software. Many judicial facilities have not received substantial improvements in about 15 years, according to Caicedo. Computer equipment purchased during that period has reached or exceeded its useful life, while furniture and vehicles are also aging. Such deficiencies can sound mundane beside criminal infiltration or bomb threats, but they affect how quickly cases move, whether hearings can be held reliably and whether employees can work in acceptable conditions.

A budget that keeps the lights on but cannot rebuild

The Judicial Council did not begin the year without money. Its problem is the way the available funds are structured. The budget inherited by Caicedo was prepared before she took office, with projections dating to September 2025. Most of the money is committed to operating costs such as salaries, rent, electricity, water and internet service. Those expenses are indispensable, but they leave little or no dedicated financing for major investment projects.

That imbalance makes modernization difficult. Replacing computer networks, renovating buildings, acquiring vehicles and digitizing records require investment spending that cannot be improvised from utility or payroll accounts. The council is therefore trying to identify projects that can be advanced with current staff and to redirect available resources toward needs that have a measurable effect on judicial operations.

The administration must also overcome weak budget execution from the period before Caicedo’s arrival. Public institutions that fail to use their approved funds have a harder time justifying larger allocations in the following year. Unspent resources can be treated as evidence that an agency already has more money than it can manage, even when the underlying problem is poor planning or delayed procurement rather than a lack of need.

Caicedo entered the budget cycle at a disadvantage. Although she was formally nominated April 29th and began exercising the role in May, the most favorable months for launching annual spending had already passed. Budget execution normally starts strongly early in the year and slows during the middle months. Her team took charge as that rate was declining, leaving less time to review old plans, correct procurement problems and complete projects before the year closes.

The council has begun examining how provincial offices spend their allocations. Caicedo cited cases in which local units prioritized unusually large purchases of bond paper rather than improvements that could directly help employees or court users. The concern is not that paper is unnecessary in a judiciary that has not completed digitization, but that repetitive or poorly targeted purchases can consume funds without resolving the system’s most urgent weaknesses.

A more disciplined approach would require provincial directors to connect spending to operational results: safer buildings, functioning equipment, faster processing or better conditions for judicial staff. The national administration is reviewing fragmented spending patterns and seeking to ensure that money is not used merely to produce a high execution percentage. Spending for its own sake could protect a future budget on paper while leaving the institution’s core problems untouched.

The immediate objective is to execute enough of the 2026 allocation responsibly to strengthen the council’s position when the government and other authorities discuss the 2027 budget proposal. Caicedo expects that improved execution will support a request for more resources next year. That argument will depend not only on how much money is spent, but on whether the council can demonstrate that its projects address documented deficiencies and can be completed under credible controls.

A race against disciplinary deadlines

The most immediate legal emergency is not a building or a computer system. It is a calendar. Soon after taking office, the new administration surveyed disciplinary proceedings handled by the National Sub-Directorate of Disciplinary Control. The review identified about 88 cases in near-term danger of becoming time-barred and roughly 1,050 pending matters that could reach their deadlines by December 2026.

When a disciplinary case expires, the council may lose its authority to impose an administrative penalty, even if the underlying conduct appears serious. That can allow an official accused of violating standards of independence, transparency or ethics to remain in office without a final administrative determination. For a judiciary already facing public suspicion, each expired file risks being interpreted as protection, indifference or incapacity.

The council has responded by sharply increasing the frequency of its plenary meetings. A body that previously held about one session a week is now meeting four or five times in many weeks and occasionally six. Four sessions may be devoted largely or entirely to disciplinary matters. Members and staff have worked extended hours, weekends and holidays to issue decisions before the statutory limits are reached.

Caicedo has said the current council is meeting the deadlines it inherited and is determined to prevent new expirations. That claim will be tested month by month as the approximately 1,050 pending cases move through the system. The number alone suggests that extraordinary meeting schedules may be necessary for some time, particularly if new complaints continue to arrive while older cases are being resolved.

The proceedings can also reveal conduct that goes beyond an internal administrative violation. When a disciplinary file contains indications of a possible crime, the council can send the information to the Prosecutor General’s Office. Caicedo has instructed officials not to wait for a disciplinary process to conclude before reporting conduct that may require a criminal investigation. Administrative and criminal responsibilities follow different rules, and action in one area does not have to depend entirely on the other.

This approach is especially important where the suspected conduct may have been intended to help a case expire. A judicial employee could remain at work while prosecutors or auditors examine whether money was accepted, records were delayed or official duties were intentionally ignored. The council cannot determine criminal guilt, but it can preserve evidence, begin its own proceedings and notify the institution with authority to investigate crimes.

The administration has assigned the deputy director of disciplinary control to monitor provincial directors and ensure files are submitted to the full council on time. The goal is to create a chain of responsibility that makes it harder for a case to disappear through inaction. Provincial officials will be expected to track deadlines, complete procedural steps and alert superiors before a file enters the period of greatest risk.

Public expectations are high because disciplinary control is one of the few mechanisms the Judicial Council can use directly against officials who violate their duties. If it works slowly or inconsistently, citizens may see little distinction between a system infiltrated by corruption and one unable to punish it. Caicedo’s strategy therefore treats timely decisions not merely as administrative housekeeping but as a test of whether the institution can police itself.

The files that can no longer be revived

Not every case can be saved. The council found about 23 recent proceedings that had already become time-barred before Caicedo took office. Some involved officials prosecuted in the Purga, Plaga and Metástasis cases, investigations that have exposed alleged links among judicial actors, public officials and organized criminal networks.

The administrative proceedings cannot simply be reopened once the applicable deadline has passed. That legal limit, however, does not end the question of how the expiration occurred. The council sent information to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the National Assembly and requested a special examination by the Comptroller General’s Office to determine whether officials failed in their duties or deliberately allowed the clock to run out.

In at least one instance, the council was unable to hold a plenary session because it lacked a quorum while a member was affected by illness or disability. Caicedo has argued that the circumstance did not remove the institution’s obligation to find a lawful way to prevent expiration. The issue is particularly sensitive because the affected cases were not routine workplace disputes; they concerned people alleged to have participated in criminal structures seeking influence within the justice system.

Caicedo’s administration is also reviewing other prescribed cases inherited from earlier periods. The purpose is not to pretend that the council can reverse a deadline after it has expired, but to identify patterns: who controlled the file, when action stopped, whether warnings were ignored and whether the same officials were connected to multiple delays. A pattern of unexplained expirations could point to more than disorganization.

Separate reports have been sent regarding alleged corruption in the disciplinary system in Pichincha. Criminal inquiries have also been requested over the reported misuse of assets provided through international cooperation for an access-to-justice initiative during the previous year. According to the council’s account, some of the donated property was not used for the purpose for which it had been supplied.

Those cases illustrate the limits of the council’s reach. It can investigate workplace conduct, impose certain administrative sanctions and refer evidence, but it must wait for prosecutors, auditors or judges to act within their own jurisdictions. A current judge or employee may therefore remain in a position while external investigations are pending, unless there is a separate legal basis for suspension or removal.

The result is an uncomfortable interval in which the institution may suspect serious wrongdoing but lack a final decision from the body empowered to establish it. Caicedo has pressed for faster communication among agencies and has told council departments to initiate disciplinary action and make criminal referrals as soon as conduct outside the rules is detected. The policy is designed to replace institutional hesitation with parallel, documented responses.

The National Court contest becomes a test of credibility

While disciplinary officials race to prevent old cases from expiring, another part of the council is preparing a selection process that could reshape Ecuador’s highest ordinary court. The National Court of Justice is short 16 judges who should be replaced during the current renewal period. A 17th vacancy may be included because another judge is scheduled to leave in July 2026.

The process will also select approximately 19 or 20 alternate judges. National Court competitions do not produce a general pool of eligible candidates waiting for later appointment. Applicants are chosen either as principal judges or as alternates who can form substitute panels when required. Taken together, the planned appointments would amount to an extensive renewal of the court.

Caicedo has made the competition the administration’s central staffing priority. Before joining the Judicial Council, she served at the National Court and viewed its continuing vacancies as a threat to the structure of the judicial branch. In her assessment, a court can retain its name and buildings while losing the capacity to deliver justice if too many seats remain empty or temporary arrangements become permanent.

The constitutional requirement for staggered renewal is meant to preserve continuity while preventing the court from being replaced all at once. Failed or delayed competitions disturb that balance. The last process concluded in 2021, and the court has not received the new judges needed to complete subsequent renewals. Each additional delay increases the burden on the judges who remain and can complicate the formation of panels.

The new contest is being designed in the shadow of two previous failures. According to Caicedo, one process collapsed after an attempt to manipulate integrity testing, while another relied on a shell company to conduct the assessments. Those episodes damaged confidence not only in the competitions but in the council’s ability to protect a selection process from hidden interests.

The revised regulations make the background or integrity check an exclusionary stage. An applicant who fails will be removed from the competition rather than merely losing points. The council’s reasoning is that technical knowledge alone cannot qualify someone for a position with the power to interpret national law, review major cases and make decisions involving criminal organizations, public institutions and private rights.

That standard gives the integrity assessment enormous influence. It also creates a duty to make the test reliable, transparent and reviewable. A poorly designed check could exclude a qualified candidate unfairly; a weak one could allow a compromised applicant to advance. The council must therefore determine who will conduct the evaluation, what information will be considered, how results will be protected and what procedures will exist to challenge an error without paralyzing the entire contest.

Caicedo has said any contractor or partner must satisfy ethical as well as legal requirements. The council does not intend to hire an entity whose ownership, expertise or accountability cannot be established. It plans to disclose the legal identity of the organization selected for each relevant stage and explain the safeguards used to protect the assessments.

Financial scrutiny and an impartial evaluation panel

Applicants will also be asked to authorize access to financial information ordinarily protected by bank secrecy. The measure is intended to create a timeline of each candidate’s finances and help evaluators identify inconsistencies that could raise questions about proven integrity. The authorization would be a condition of participating in the competition rather than a general suspension of privacy rights for judicial officials.

The council’s position is that candidates seeking one of the country’s most powerful judicial posts must allow a deeper examination than would be expected in ordinary employment. A financial review could compare declared income, assets and transactions over time, although the available information does not specify the exact period, thresholds or analytical method that will be used. Those details will be important because unusual financial activity does not automatically prove wrongdoing, and an effective process must distinguish explainable changes from evidence of concealed interests.

Caicedo has linked the measure to the constitutional demand for demonstrated integrity. In her view, the National Court needs judges whose professional ethics provide confidence that legal interpretation will serve the rule of law rather than criminal networks or private patrons. The financial authorization is being presented as one tool for testing that reliability, alongside professional history, background information and other integrity controls.

The evaluation committees are also being redesigned. The council says it wants specialists chosen for their commitment and qualifications, not because they were placed on a panel by a political or institutional sponsor. Agreements are being developed so an impartial third party can participate in selecting evaluators, reducing the degree to which council members themselves determine who scores the applicants.

Every element of the contest will be watched because the outcome affects both the court and the legitimacy of the council. Background checks, written or oral evaluations, scoring, affirmative action, financial review and committee selection are not isolated technical steps. A flaw in any one of them can cast doubt on the final appointments or provide grounds for an unsuccessful candidate to seek judicial relief.

A schedule vulnerable to court challenges

Caicedo has declined to promise a completion date. That reluctance reflects more than administrative caution. Judicial selection processes in Ecuador can be interrupted by constitutional protection actions and precautionary measures filed by applicants or other interested parties. A judge considering such a request can suspend part or all of a competition while the claim is reviewed.

The Judicial Council administers the contest but cannot order a judge to reject a challenge. That separation protects judicial independence, yet it also means the council cannot guarantee that its published schedule will survive litigation. Even a process designed with realistic deadlines may be frozen by a court order, extending vacancies and forcing administrators to defend each disputed stage.

Past competitions offer only rough guidance. The process through which Caicedo became a National Court alternate judge began in 2020 and ended in 2021, taking about a year. A separate selection of anti-corruption judges lasted approximately seven to nine months. The new National Court contest involves fewer positions than a nationwide recruitment drive but more scrutiny, given the failures that preceded it.

The council hopes to complete the work in less than a year, but it has said speed cannot come at the cost of applicant quality or procedural security. A compressed calendar may satisfy demands for immediate appointments while creating errors that later invalidate the results. A cautious calendar may produce stronger decisions but leave the court understaffed for longer. The administration is trying to give each phase enough time without allowing routine tasks to become another source of indefinite delay.

Caicedo’s refusal to set a firm deadline does not remove pressure to show progress. The council will still be expected to publish regulations, announce the openings, select evaluators, contract qualified service providers and report the completion of each stage. Measurable milestones could allow the public to distinguish a process slowed by legitimate review from one drifting through the same institutional inertia that undermined earlier competitions.

Seven hundred vacancies beyond the high court

The National Court shortage is only the most visible part of the staffing problem. Across Ecuador, the judiciary has about 700 vacancies that eventually must be filled. Organizing a competition of that scale would require thousands of applications to be verified, scored and subjected to background controls. The volume is far greater than the planned contest for 16 or possibly 17 principal judges and about 20 alternates.

The council does not plan to launch the 700-position national competition in 2026. Caicedo has argued that doing so while the National Court process is being constructed would exceed the institution’s current capacity and risk sacrificing the quality of both. The decision leaves courts around the country operating with vacancies for longer, but it reflects an attempt to sequence projects rather than announce multiple contests the council cannot manage.

Work has begun, however, on regulations for judges specializing in constitutional matters, another process that had stalled. That project adds to a list in which nearly every item can reasonably be called urgent: renewing the National Court, filling lower-court vacancies, modernizing Satje, digitizing records, deciding disciplinary cases, improving facilities and strengthening security.

The competition for scarce attention is itself a consequence of delayed management. When evaluations, recruitment and investment occur on a regular cycle, an institution can distribute the work over years. When they are postponed repeatedly, each unfinished obligation eventually arrives as an emergency. The council is now facing not one isolated backlog but several overlapping backlogs that draw on the same legal, technical and financial staff.

The council’s sequencing strategy places the National Court first because of its constitutional role and the number of failed attempts to renew it. That choice does not make the other vacancies less consequential. It means the administration is betting that a successful, defensible high-court competition can establish procedures and public confidence that later contests can use.

A failed process would have the opposite effect. It could deepen vacancies, invite further litigation and reinforce the belief that powerful interests can prevent renewal whenever an outcome threatens them. For that reason, the integrity of the competition has become intertwined with the broader anti-corruption campaign. Selecting judges through a process the public trusts is not separate from removing compromised officials; both determine whether criminal organizations can influence who exercises judicial authority.

The next tests arrive quickly

Caicedo’s first months have been dominated by triage. The council is trying to protect courthouses after direct threats, prevent hundreds of disciplinary files from expiring, identify responsibility for cases already lost, execute a budget designed before the new administration arrived and prepare a National Court competition capable of surviving legal and public scrutiny.

The administration has emphasized visible activity: repeated plenary sessions, referrals to prosecutors and auditors, work on new regulations, internal development of Satje 2.0 and negotiations over court security. Activity alone, however, will not establish that the institution has changed. The results will depend on whether disciplinary decisions are issued lawfully, referrals produce investigations, contracts withstand examination and vacancies are filled by qualified people rather than merely filled quickly.

The three-year police agreement may offer the most immediate sign of change at judicial buildings, especially in locations with documented threats. Its semiannual reviews will show whether the initial deployment matches conditions on the ground. A courthouse may need more officers after a new threat or fewer if risks decline and resources are required elsewhere. The arrangement is meant to evolve rather than remain fixed while criminal tactics change.

Inside those buildings, the harder work will be less visible. Staff members will be counting limitation periods, verifying notices, preparing disciplinary records, reviewing budgets and building technical systems that most citizens will never see. Applicants to the National Court will be evaluated not only on legal knowledge but on backgrounds and finances. Provincial directors will face closer oversight of deadlines and spending. Each measure is intended to close a route through which negligence, corruption or simple delay has previously weakened the institution.

Caicedo has acknowledged that some damage cannot be undone. The council cannot revive a disciplinary sanction after the legal period has expired, recover years in which judges were not recruited or replace every obsolete machine at once. It can document what happened, refer possible wrongdoing, change procedures and prevent the next file from meeting the same fate.

That incremental approach is unlikely to satisfy a public accustomed to hearing that every judicial problem is urgent. But the scale of the inherited backlog leaves few credible alternatives. The council must move fast enough to stop further losses and carefully enough to avoid producing another failed competition, questionable contract or sanction overturned for violating due process.

By the time the 2027 budget is debated, the administration will have a clearer record. It will be able to show whether spending improved, whether the disciplinary backlog shrank, whether the police deployment protected threatened sites and whether the National Court contest advanced without the manipulation alleged in earlier efforts. Those outcomes will shape not only the council’s request for money but its claim that the latest period of reform is different from the ones that stalled before it.

For now, the justice system remains in a race against several clocks at once: the deadlines on disciplinary files, the departure of another National Court judge, the annual budget calendar and the daily pressure created by organized crime. The next decisive moment may come not through a sweeping institutional overhaul, but when a threatened courthouse stays open, a case is decided before it expires or a judicial vacancy is finally filled through a process that can withstand scrutiny.