Ecuador: Supreme Court blocks nine referendum questions

President Daniel Noboa wanted to put nine security-related referendum questions to Ecuadoreans, but the country’s highest court blocked them on Friday, citing constitutional violations.

In response to the escalating violence in the Andean nation, Noboa proclaimed a state of emergency and instituted a 60-day curfew at night. At the same time, the country designated 22 criminal bands as terrorist organizations and launched a military offensive against them.

Four more referendum questions, including those on the recognition of international arbitration and the extradition of Ecuadorians, will be reexamined, the Constitutional Court said, while six other questions were approved.

Noboa had said that he hopes to hold the referendum in March.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court said it blocked the nine questions because they do not change current regulations, are imprecise, or address multiple topics.

Among questions the court denied were those on allowing security forces to carry out operations preempting organized crime, as well as on changes to sanctions and pardons regarding the use of force.

Noboa’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ecuador has been engulfed in spiraling violence, including in prisons where hundreds of inmates have been killed in recent years, which officials attribute to gangs of drug traffickers.

(With inputs from Reuters)