TRANSITORY PROVISIONS
- The legislative body, within a term of one hundred twenty (120) days as of the entry into force of this Constitution, shall pass the law that develops the system for food sovereignty, the electoral law, the law governing the Judicial Branch, the Judiciary Council, and the law that governs the Council for Public Participation and Social ControlWithin a maximum term of three hundred sixty (360) days, the following laws shall be passed:
- The law governing the functioning of the Constitutional Court and the procedures for monitoring constitutionality.
- The law governing water resources, water use and development, which shall include permits for current and future water use and development, their terms of duration, conditions, mechanisms for review and audit, to ensure the formalization and equitable distribution of this national asset.
- The law governing public participation.
- The law on communication.
- The law governing education, higher education, culture and sports.
- The law governing public services.
- The law governing the Office of the Attorney for the Defense of the People.
- The laws organizing data registration, in particular the vital statistics, mercantile and property registries. In any case, systems for cross-checking data and national databases shall be established.
- The law governing territorial decentralization of the various levels of government and the system of jurisdictions, which shall incorporate procedures for the calculation and annual distribution of funds that decentralized autonomous governments shall be receiving from the General Budget of the State. This law shall set the time-limits for establishing autonomous regions.
- Criminal law and the law for criminal procedures in military and police affairs.
- The law governing public security and the State.
The legal regulatory structure needed for the development of the Constitution shall be adopted during the first term of office of the National Assembly.
- The legislative body, within thirty (30) days after the entry into force of the present Constitution, shall designate, on the basis of a competitive and merit-based public examination, subject to the submittal of candidates, oversight and challenge by the public, the council persons of the first Council for Public Participation and Social Control, who shall remain provisionally in office until enactment of the corresponding law. In this process, the norms and principles set forth in the Constitution shall be applied.The transition Council shall remain in office until the law governing its organization and functioning is passed and, within one hundred twenty (120) days, it shall draft the respective bill for consideration by the legislative body.
- The public servants of the Commission for Civic Control of Corruption and the National Anti-Corruption Secretariat, whose appointment and recall are not discretionary, shall become members of the Council for Public Participation and Social ControlThe existing superintendencies shall continue to hold office until the legislative body issues the respective laws.
- The public servants of National Congress, except for those whose appointment and recall are discretionary, shall be transferred to provide their services to the National Assembly.The assets of the National Congress shall become part of the assets of the National Assembly.
- The staff of officials and employees of the Constitutional Tribunal, except for those whose appointment and recall are discretionary, shall be transferred to the Constitutional Court, subject to a process of evaluation and selection.The assets of the Constitutional Tribunal shall be transferred to the Constitutional Court.
The National Publishing Company and the Official Register shall be transformed into a state enterprise, which shall be autonomous, in conformity with the provisions of the present Constitution and the law. Their staff, assets and budget shall be transferred to the new institution.
- The national councils for children and adolescents, persons with disabilities, women, indigenous peoples and nations, Afro-Ecuadorians and coastal back-country people (montubios) shall establish their own national councils for equality, for which purposes they shall adjust their structure and duties in line with the Constitution.
- Job security shall be ensured for the officials and employees of the current Supreme Court of Justice, National Judiciary Council, superior courts, district courts for administrative and fiscal dispute settlement, fiscal courts and criminal courts, who shall be relocated to posts of a similar rank and salary in the Judiciary Council, the National Court of Justice, the provincial courts and tribunals, respectively.
- The proceedings that are being ruled admissible by the members of the Supreme Court of Justice, as well as those that are being heard by police and military courts, shall be transferred to and resolved by the National Court of Justice.
- The Judiciary Council, within a term of no less than three hundred sixty (360) days as of its establishment, shall implement a new notary public service, in conformity with the present Constitution and the law.As of the entry into force of the present Constitution, the terms of office of standing, temporary, interim or alternate appointments of notary public attorneys are declared terminated.
Within the term indicated in the first paragraph, invitations shall be made to public competitive and merit-based examinations for these offices, in conformity with the new constitutional framework. While these examinations are being conducted, the notary public attorneys shall remain in extended office until they are legally replaced.
The facilities and documents of the notary offices belonging to the current notary structure shall be transferred to the new notary service.
- During the transition period, the criminal defense service shall continue to be under the Ministry of Justice, through the Transitory Unit for the Management of the Office of the Criminal Attorney for the Defense of the People, on whose technical grounds the Office of the Attorney for the Defense of the People shall be organized, which must be established within two years, with priority given to public criminal defense, the defense of children and adolescents, and labor cases.
- During the third year of office, lots shall be drawn among those who become members of the first National Electoral Council and the first Electoral Dispute Settlement Court, to determine who among their members should be replaced in conformity with the rule of partial renewal provided for by the present Constitution. The drawing of lots shall take place at a session where the invitation for the corresponding knowledge-based eliminatory public examinations and the competitive and merit-based public examinations is approved.The officials and employees of the Electoral Supreme Court and provincial electoral courts, whose appointment and recall are not discretionary, shall continue to hold office in the Electoral Branch of Government and shall be subject to a process of selection and qualification in line with the needs of the new institutions.
In each province, electoral boards answerable to the National Electoral Council shall be temporarily established and they shall perform the duties that the latter instructs them to, as well as those stipulated by law. There shall be no lower-ranking bodies of the Electoral Dispute Settlement Court.
- Within forty-five days after the entry into force of the present Constitution, political parties and movements shall have to register once again with the National Electoral Council and shall be able to keep their names, symbols and number.
- The eradication of illiteracy shall constitute a State policy and, as long as this illiteracy persists, voting by illiterate persons shall be optional.
- On the basis of the General Budget of the State for the year 2009, the amount of transfers from the Central State to decentralized autonomous governments shall not be, in any case, lower than the amount allocated in the Budget of financial year 2008.
- The assets and liabilities, the officials and employees of the Provincial Council of Galapagos and the National Institute of Galapagos shall be transferred to the Government Council of the Special Governance System for the Galapagos.
- To settle conflicts involving territorial boundaries and matters of national belonging, the respective reports shall be submitted to the Office of the President of the Republic, which within two years as of the entry into force of the present Constitution shall submit, to the legislative body, the bill for setting territorial boundaries and, if appropriate, shall call for a referendum to settle conflicts of belonging.
- The Central State, within two years after the entry into force of the present Constitution, shall finance and, in coordination with decentralized autonomous governments, shall draw up the geodesic map of the nation’s territory for establishing the urban and rural sector land registries (cadastres) for real estate property and land use planning processes at all levels as stipulated in the Constitution.
- The State shall progressively allocate public resources from the General Budget of the State for initial basic education and secondary education leading to a high school diploma, with annual increments of at least zero point five percent (0.5%) of gross domestic product (GDP) until the share amounts to six percent (6%) of GDP.Until adoption of the General Budget of the State the year after the entry into force of the present Constitution, the State shall compensate public universities and polytechnic schools for the amount they shall no longer be receiving from charging tuition, registration fees, and other charges connected to the schooling of students. As of this moment, this funding shall appear in the General Budget of the State.
Upon evaluation, only those private universities that, at the time of the entry into force of the present Constitution, are receiving allocations and revenues from the State, in accordance with the law, shall be entitled to continue receiving them in the future. These entities must submit reports accounting for the public funding received and shall allocate the resources provided by the State to grant scholarships to students from low-income households from the start of the course of studies.
- The State shall conduct a comprehensive assessment of the one-teacher and multi-teacher public schools and shall adopt measures aimed at overcoming the precarious conditions of these schools and guaranteeing the right to education.In the course of three years, the State shall conduct an assessment of the functioning, final purpose and quality of public education processes and shall draw up adequate policies to improve and regularize the faculty.
- The Executive Branch shall set up an advanced institute aimed at promoting the practice of teaching and managerial, administrative, and support jobs in the national education system. The national educational authority shall be at the head of the institute in terms of academic, administrative, and financial duties.Within five years as of the entry into force of the present Constitution, all institutions of higher learning, as well as professional training courses, study programs and graduate programs must be evaluated and accredited in accordance with the law. If they do not pass the evaluation and accreditation, then they shall be outside the system of higher education.
- The State shall encourage public sector teachers and instructors to retire by paying them compensation depending on their age and years of service. The maximum compensation shall amount to one hundred fifty (150) consolidated minimum wages for private-sector employees and to five consolidated minimum wages for the private-sector employee in general for years of service. The law shall govern the procedures and methods of calculation.
- The General Budget of the State aimed at funding the national health system shall be increased every year by a percentage of no less man zero point five percent (0.5%) of gross domestic product (GDP) until it accounts for at least four percent (4%) of GDP.
- Within one hundred eighty (180) days as of adoption of the present Constitution, a financial institution shall be created, owned by the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute and responsible for the management of its funds, governed by investment banking criteria, for the purpose of creating jobs and added value.
- Within a maximum term of thirty (30) days as of adoption of the present Constitution, the Executive Branch shall set up a commission to conduct an audit of radio and television broadcasting frequency concessions, the report of which shall be submitted within a maximum term of one hundred eighty (180) days.
- The annual review of the minimum wage shall be conducted on the basis of a progressive scale until a decent wage is achieved, in accordance with the provisions of the present Constitution. The minimum wage shall tend to be equivalent to the cost of the basic household shopping basket. Universal retirement for the elderly shall be applied progressively.
- Within three hundred sixty (360) days as of the entry into force of the present Constitution, the concessions for the public services of water and sanitation shall be audited financially, legally, environmentally and socially.The State shall decide the term of validity, the renegotiation and, if appropriate, the termination of these concession contracts, in accordance with the provisions of the present Constitution and on the basis of the results of the audits.
Users living in extreme poverty shall be forgiven any water use debts they might have incurred up until the entry into force of the present Constitution.
- The Executive Branch, within two years after the entry into force of the present Constitution, shall review the situation of access to irrigation water for the purpose of granting concessions, avoiding abuse and inequity in the fees charged for water use, and guaranteeing more equitable distribution and access, especially for small and medium-sized farm and cattle producers.
- The law governing the participation of decentralized autonomous governments in the share of the production or industrialization of nonrenewable natural resources cannot reduce the revenues provided for by Law 010 of the Fund for the Ecological Development of the Amazon Region and the Capacity Building of its Local Bodies or those provided for by the law allocating five percent (5%) of the revenues earned from the sale of electric power generated by the hydropower stations of Paute, Pisayambo and Agoyan (Law 047) for the benefit of the provinces of Azuay, Canar, Morona Santiago, and Tungurahua.
- Shares and equity interests owned by the financial system’s private entities, or by national private media entities, their directors and principal shareholders in entities from a different industry, shall be sold within a period of one year after the enactment of this reform in a referendum.The shares held by the legal entities of the financial sector, their legal representatives and the members of their boards of directors and shareholders who have a share in the paid-in capital of the media must be expropriated within two years as of the entry into force of the present Constitution.
- The Solidarity Fund, within three hundred sixty (360) days, prior to its liquidation, shall transform into state enterprises all those private-sector enterprises in which it is a shareholder. To this end, it shall order that these enterprises previously carry out a detailed inventory of their assets and liabilities and immediately outsource the implementation of audits, whose results shall serve as the groundwork for their transformation.The State shall guarantee the funding of the social services provided by the Solidarity Fund, especially those ensuring free maternity and child care services, as well as the resources earmarked by this institution for human development programs currently being implemented, until their completion.
Financial investments and disposable cash assets of the Solidarity Fund shall be reinvested at the time of its termination in the state enterprises that are created or they shall be transferred to the Central State. The remaining assets of the Solidarity Fund shall be transferred to the institution that is set up by executive decree.
Investment projects in the electric power and telecommunication sectors that are approved and being implemented in keeping with Constitutional Mandate number nine shall be transferred to the electric power and telecommunication utilities that are established by virtue of the present transitory provision, with the balances of the respective budget allocations earmarked for their completion and liquidation.
Once the above provisions have been complied with and within a maximum term of three hundred sixty (360) days, the Solidarity Fund shall be terminated.
