Ecuador: 34.7% of Assaults Unreported Due to Distrust in Justice System

According to ElComercio.com a survey completed in Quito by the Observatory of Metropolitan Citizen Security (OMSC) in 4,000 houses during January 2011, reveals that 80% of assaults go unreported. The survey reports 34.7% of the assaults are unreported due to judicial system distrust and 15.7% due to distrust of police. The director of OMSC says in 2008 85.5% of victims did not report their assault cases. El Comercio reports in February 2011, a Vanderbilt University study titled, “The Political Culture of Democracy in Ecuador, 2010” was presented in Quito. The study shows in the past year one of every four Ecuadorians paid Ecuadorian courts a bribe in the past year. The president of the National Federation of Observatories of the Justice System in Ecuador says he is concerned about how justice is handled in Ecuador and calls for a complete change in the judicial system.Read Article