Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso on Tuesday vetoed a law intended to repeal his tax reform, effective November 29, 2021, following the National Assembly’s approval of the measure last month.
The Ecuadorian Head of State has explained that this decision is taken «for unconstitutional and inconvenient» of the project, so it will pass to the Constitutional Court (CC) which, in 30 days, must rule in favor or not of the reading of the Executive, as reported by ‘El Telegrafo’.
In case the Constitutional Court rules in favor of the Government’s opinion on the derogation to the Organic Law for Economic Development and Fiscal Sustainability after the COVID-19 Pandemic, it may not be dealt with by the Parliament for at least one year.
After this time and in order to try to articulate any type of reform again, the Assembly will need the favorable vote of 92 of the total of 137 assembly members.
The Government justifies the objection for unconstitutionality, pointing out that the repealing bill was not presented by the Executive and argues, according to Article 135 of the Constitution, that «only the President of the Republic may present bills that create, modify or suppress taxes, increase public spending or modify the political-administrative division of the country».
«In view of the irresponsible actions of the legislature and in view of the constitutional responsibility that the Executive Branch exercises over the Public Administration, it is up to the co-legislator to act responsibly and totally object to this bill», said Lasso in a statement published by the aforementioned newspaper.
Likewise, Lasso underlined that the Government «assumed the national economy with a fiscal deficit of more than 7,000 million US dollars (6,500 million euros), which forced it to «take measures such as the tax increase».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)