The right to defense as a guarantee of due process in reserved investigations

Abstract

This article is developed with the objective of analyzing the violation of the right to defense as a guarantee of due process through the legal procedure of reserved investigations in criminal matters. For this, a type of descriptive research with a qualitative approach was used, with the purpose of illustrating about the characteristics and legal nature of the right to defense as well as due process and how this can be seen violated through the exercise of investigations with reserved character. With what was obtained as a result that the reserved investigations are used when in a justified and substantiated manner there is the presumption that the development of the investigation may have some type of hindrance, however in legal practice this procedure is often misused to the point that the access of the intervening parties is prevented, which limits the right to defense, mainly of suspected persons, even when the law requires that the right to defense must be respected in all proceedings. It is concluded that, as analyzed in Colombian legislation, it is meritorious that the action of a competent and impartial authority be incorporated into the Ecuadorian legal system whose objective is to regulate, verify and control that the investigative actions carried out by the prosecution are framed in the guarantees of due process, thus ensuring effective protection of the rights of the accused.