Preventive detention in flagrante delicto in the Metropolitan District of Quito during the second half of 2019

Abstract

Precautionary measures are mechanisms of criminal procedural assurance established by the State in order to protect the rights of the victim and the effectiveness of the process. They imply strict respect for principles and normative parameters because they constitute restrictions on the rights of a person being prosecuted, before being recognized as guilty. Given the complexity of the topic, in this paper has been intended to identify the form of application of pre-trial detention in the Flagrancy Units of Quito Metropolitan District in the second semester of 2019. Therefore, analytical and deductive research methods and field and documentary investigative techniques have been used, mainly related to jurisprudence, doctrine, legislation, interviews and files of the Flagrancy Units. As a result, it has been concluded that the application of pre-trial detention, in practice, does not have an exceptional character. It is imposed indiscriminately, without respecting the principles of proportionality nor the proper guarantees of motivation, and it generates a reversal of the burden of proof that directly undermines the right to legal certainty enshrined in the Constitution.

Keywords

• criminal law
• prison
• criminal sanction
• precautionary measures
• pre-trial detention detention.