Análisis del principio de presunción de inocencia en la reforma del artículo 529 del Código Orgánico Integral Penal

Abstract

Human dignity is shown as the distinguished right of the current Ecuadorian Constitution, a supreme rule that guarantees decent treatment even to persons subjected to criminal proceedings, as long as their responsibility is not declared by a final decision or enforceable sentence. This dignity underlies the principle of presumption of innocence, a mechanism aimed at protecting detainees from the possible dangers that would imply an absolute power of the State and the criminal prosecution apparatus. This research project will focus on the principle of presumption of innocence and its scope in relation to flagrant crimes; both in the doctrinal, jurisprudential, normative and comparative law spheres. In conjunction with the analysis of a possible transgression of this principle as a guarantee of due process in the criminal field, regarding the reform to article 529 of the Organic Integral Penal Code, which proposes the facial identification, therefore public exhibition, of the person apprehended in certain flagrant crime that has caused social commotion. All this in exercise of the right to freedom of information recognized in Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador. Then, the purpose of this document is to expose the potential violations to which the state of innocence of the arrested person may be subject, when being openly exposed to the community through mass media, which may lead to a prejudgment of the detainee person and consequently affect the principle of innocence that should prevail until its possible disappearance through the practice of evidence in court and the guilty veredict.