Orders from
the Judiciary Council

On May 31, 2022, the National Assembly removed Guadalupe Llori as president of the legislature. Llori had held on for weeks thanks to precautionary measures and protective actions that arrived, according to lawmakers, with suspicious speed: one of them two minutes after the plenary session was convened. Her appeal went to a panel of the Provincial Court of Pichincha that included the president of that court, the highest-ranking judge in the province. If that panel ruled in her favor, Llori could return to the presidency of the Assembly. The only bloc that had defended her to the end was that of Guillermo Lasso's government.

The next day, Wednesday, June 1, two members of the Judiciary Council walked into that judge's office: Juan José Morillo, the member appointed on behalf of the Ombudsman's Office, and Ruth Maribel Barreno, the member appointed on behalf of the Attorney General's Office. The Council has five members and is the body that governs the judicial career: it appoints, disciplines and removes judges. Someone else was in the room and recorded it. That person, who identified themselves to Andersson Boscán as an eyewitness to a possible crime of influence peddling, gave the full audio to La Posta.

The recording begins with a lesson in politics. The council members explain to the judge that Llori's fall worries the new president of the Assembly, Virgilio Saquicela, and that the changes could complicate things for everyone. An impeachment trial against the Judiciary Council itself, Morillo and Barreno included, was parked in the Assembly. They ask the judge whether he has already reviewed Llori's case. The judge replies that he has not yet. The source who provided the audio assured La Posta that the decision had already been written.

Morillo continues: the legislature, he says, is seizing power arbitrarily and used a session called long ago to take up the removal. So I want to pass on to you this concern of the president, with all the trust I have in you, he tells the judge. There is a formal request. I would like you to review the matter, analyze how the situation stands and be able to rule. Barreno does not speak during that part, but she is present from the greeting to the goodbye. The council members thank the judge for receiving them in his office.

La Posta published the audio on the morning of June 15, 2022, with Leonidas Iza just released and the national strike in its fourth day. Government officials had suggested to Boscán that it was not the right moment. He replied on air that political calculation was not his responsibility, that the complete, unedited audio was available to the Attorney General's Office, the Oversight Committee and the president of the Republic, and that they had been trying to reach Morillo since midnight without a response. Barreno did not answer either. The Council's president, Fausto Murillo, when asked by the newsroom, remained silent.

Carondelet did respond. The night before, La Posta had contacted the Presidency, and that morning an adviser to the president called Boscán with an official message, which he relayed almost word for word.

The government itself told Boscán that, in an off-the-record conversation, Morillo had acknowledged meeting with the judge. The president of the Provincial Court, for his part, put out a message: he was ill, on leave since the day before, and knew nothing about politics or the news. The minister of Economic and Social Inclusion, Esteban Bernal, came on Café La Posta that morning as the government's voice: he said he could neither confirm nor verify the audio, that the Presidency had already made its position known and that it would take the appropriate action.

Criminal lawyer Felipe Rodríguez analyzed the recording on the show. Influence peddling could be taking shape, he said, although the vocabulary was clever: Morillo does not dictate the text of the ruling, but he insinuates that the measures against Llori were irregular and asks for help for her. The underlying detail is that the council member is the judge's disciplinary superior: any complaint against that judge ends up being decided by the full Council, with the same members who went to ask him for a hand.

The reactions came within minutes. Assembly member Ricardo Vanegas, of Pachakutik, spoke of clear interference in the administration of justice by Morillo and Barreno and announced that he would ask the attorney general to investigate. Esteban Torres, head of the Social Christian bloc, asked what the Attorney General's Office was waiting for to arrest the two council members. Jorge Abedrapo, also of the PSC, wrote that they wanted to have them on their knees. An assembly member submitted a formal document to Fernando Villavicencio, chair of the Oversight Committee, asking that Morillo and Barreno be summoned. Darwin Pereira, of Pachakutik, said on the show that the audio confirmed what his bloc had been denouncing: judges in someone's pocket.

In the comments, angry viewers accused La Posta of playing into the hands of correísmo. Boscán answered on air.

The next day, June 16, Morillo still had not surfaced. He had been announced as an interviewee on Ecuavisa and did not show up. Esteban Torres said on Café La Posta that on Monday, June 13, he had denounced a hallway rumor that ran from the Assembly to the courts: that Llori's precautionary measures could not be explained without someone higher up giving the nod. The audio, he said, proved it. Torres spoke of two possible crimes, criminal association and influence peddling, and of two complaints already filed with the Attorney General's Office. He added another rumor: that orders had allegedly been given to erase the June 1 camera footage at the Judiciary Council building on 12 de Octubre Avenue.

Politically, the council members were summoned before three Assembly committees. The harshest sanction, the impeachment trial against the Judiciary Council, was due to open that Friday in the Oversight Committee, and Torres announced that his bloc would push it forward. Boscán summed up the moment: there was a new majority of more than a hundred votes in the Assembly, the first impeachment trial in line was that of the Judiciary Council, where Morillo and Barreno sat, and the judge who had the written decision was going to have to decide whether to present it or write another.

When La Posta published the audio, the government and the Judiciary Council played it down, and Boscán doubted that the Attorney General's Office would get anywhere. The case followed its course while the Judiciary Council entered its worst crisis. In September 2023, with Wilman Terán heading the body, criminal lawyer Ramiro García filed a complaint with Attorney General Diana Salazar alleging that the resolution by which the Council removed Judge Walter Macías contained a false statement: it said only three members voted, when the video showed all five. Barreno and Morillo were among those who abstained. Boscán then counted four of the five council members under investigation for some type of crime.

On September 27, 2023, at ten in the morning, the arraignment hearing opened against Maribel Barreno, Juan José Morillo and the judge they spoke with in the audio, the president of the Provincial Court of Pichincha, Vladimir Jhayya. Around one in the morning on the 28th, Judge Walter Macías ruled: the two council members charged as co-perpetrators of alleged influence peddling, the judge as an accomplice, and pretrial detention for Barreno only, with an arrest warrant. Barreno had earlier filed a lawsuit against the attorney general for harassment and intimidation.

Two names were left out. Guillermo Lasso, the president Morillo invokes in the recording, was never investigated for his alleged involvement, even though correísmo, through assembly member Viviana Veloz, had at the time asked for him to be included. Guadalupe Llori, the beneficiary of the effort, was not linked to the case either. The audio entered the prosecutor's case file through the cooperation of a protected witness: the same person who gave it to La Posta.

That same morning, with the arrest warrant in force, Barreno filed a request for vacation at the Judiciary Council from that Thursday until October 27. Boscán wrote to Judge Macías and to Barreno herself asking for their reactions; neither responded. On the show, the question that most interested Boscán remained open: what Morillo would say at trial, whether he would maintain that he acted of his own accord or would point to whoever, according to him, sent him.

The recording La Posta aired on June 15, 2022, was the first direct evidence of how the court decisions that kept Guadalupe Llori in the presidency of the Assembly were obtained: two members of the body that oversees judges, in the office of the judge who was to rule, asking for support in the name of the president of the Republic. Not even under correísmo, Boscán said that day, had anyone been heard claiming that the order came from the president.

The case produced complaints at the Attorney General's Office, summonses before the Assembly, an impeachment trial against the Council and, fifteen months later, a criminal case for influence peddling against the two council members and the judge, with pretrial detention for Barreno. The case remains open. Guillermo Lasso finished his term without being investigated in this case, and Morillo, the man who said he was speaking on his behalf, has still not publicly explained why he went to that office.