The contentious-administrative jurisdiction: a legal reflection on its dysfunctionalities

When, more than three centuries ago, the Italian jurist Antonio de Rosmini stated that the law never shines as much as when it is violated, perhaps he did not imagine that the wisdom of his statement would survive the passage of time. Today, that parable is confirmed in Ecuador because it has been the deterioration of legality that has been driving us lawyers to ponder the brilliance of Law and the importance that Administrative Law has on all the orders in which the State develops its activity.

In other words, the multiplied violations and fractures of Public Law have been an efficient cause for us to emphasize with more impetus than before the role that district judges must assume in order to control legality and achieve that coveted brilliance of Law. In this context, in which we have moved from simple disrespect to total disregard for legality, it is inevitable to look to those countries that have overcome these painful signs of delay. In them we find that a public power respectful of freedom and a law that carefully limits it are factors that converge and explain economic prosperity and acceptable levels of social equity; therefore, those of us who deal with the law as lawyers, judges, public servants, professors or students of jurisprudence should not lose sight of the impact that institutions and laws have on the economic life of our countries.