The regulations, promoted by the government of President Daniel Noboa, establish, among other issues, the effects of the periodic evaluations that will be applied to public sector employees and that will determine their job security.

The United Workers’ Front that considers this unconstitutional, along with other organizations, has already filed more than 15 lawsuits before the Constitutional Court against the Law, approved last June and which reforms legal bodies related to public procurement, tax management, the financial sector, and state administration.

Legislator Lenin Barreto, of the Citizen Revolution movement, warned that the current legal text is opening the door to arbitrary dismissals, as provisional appointments can be terminated without prior notice, without evaluation, without requirements, and without stability.

Furthermore, Barreto specified that the Ministry of Labor can now initiate “performance evaluations” ex officio, whenever it wants, without guarantees, without the right to defense, and for clearly political purposes.

Initially, the bill was specifically intended to modify the public sector hiring process; however, the legislature incorporated other changes, including penal reforms.

Among them are changes to the Children and Adolescents Code, toughening penalties for adolescents who commit crimes, increasing the maximum sentence from eight to 15 years and extending pretrial detention from 90 days to one year, a move questioned by organizations such as UNICEF.

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