The Conceptuality and Reality of Indigenous Justice in Ecuador

Abstract

In the Ecuadorian State, not only since the 2008 constitution in force until today, the right to the administration of justice of the indigenous collectivities through their own authorities is recognized, being this subject of the analysis of this article and is one of the issues that requires special attention and treatment given the disadvantageous situation in relation to the prevailing ordinary justice within the national territory. Within the unitary state as it is configured in Ecuador, the presence of jurisdictional systems including a system of alternative justice for the resolution of conflicts is very useful even to decongest the administration of ordinary justice given the high demand for judicial processes.
In this work, when approaching the exercise of the indigenous justice administration, the analysis of primary and secondary sources with emphasis on the constitutional regulations, international and legal instruments, at the same time the actual praxis of these processes is evidenced, whose panorama is not at all encouraging since this millenary system has not been fully developed.