Obligatoriedad del precedente jurisprudencial auto vinculante en la Corte Constitucional ecuatoriana a partir del año 2019

Abstract

Self-binding judicial precedent is a legal tool capable of providing a judicial system with validity, coherence and consistency. Through its application, judges are able to universalize their rulings and raise the level of justice of a system. It functions as a guarantee of legal certainty and allows the realization of the principle of equality. However, due to its nature, it has been relegated to a secondary level. Thus, the Ecuadorian legal system does not establish a clear rule that regulates it, determining its field of application or its level of scope. In response, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, through its rulings, exposes the space and level of entailment that the aforementioned precedent has. Through an analysis of these rulings, together with a study of the doctrine that deals with precedent in its horizontal dimension, this research is aimed at finding an answer to the question: When are judges obliged to follow their own criteria, set forth in previous rulings, and when can they deviate from them? Thus, delimiting the reach of the gravitational obligation that revolves around the self-binding nature of precedent.