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mayor, the secretary general of the Ecuadorian Revolutionary Socialist Party (a legal political party) and student leaders affiliated to that party. The most prominent defendant in the case was the writer Jaime Galarza, well known throughout Latin America for a critical study of corruption in the Ecuadorian petroleum industry. Despite the nature of the charges, Señor Galarza was felt to be a prisoner of conscience, and was adopted by AI.
In May 1973 the First Special Tribunal of Quito had passed long-term prison sentences on eight prisoners, all politically active. An appeal was then lodged before the Superior Military Court which accepted the appeal petition that the convictions should be quashed on the grounds that the ruling court had no jurisdiction in the case.
In August 1974, following international and domestic protests over their legality, the special tribunals were formally abolished. But the government said sentences passed by the tribunals during their two years of existence would be upheld and appeals would continue to be heard by the Superior Military Court.
In September 1974, a Colombian lawyer, Dr Lisandro Martinez, visited Ecuador and inquired into the case of Señor Galarza and others at the request of AI and the International Commission of Jurists. With the full cooperation of the Ecuadorian authorities, Dr Martinez examined the official documents and inter- viewed the defence counsel, the prosecutors, the original examining judge and members of the Superior Military Court.
Dr Martinez found serious irregularities both generic to the suspended special tribunals and specific in the Galarza case. He criticized the tribunals' lack of independence from executive control and questioned their legal competence on the grounds that two of three judges in each court were military officers with no legal training who were appointed by presidential order. Investigations were in the hands of military security units responsible to the Ministry of Defence.
Examining the Galarza case, Dr Martinez found that confessions made after torture and during interrogation by military personnel had formed the principal basis for prosecution. He noted that the special tribunal had no legal jurisdiction according to Ecuadorian law, as all charges in the case referred to common law rather than political offences, and no jurisdiction on territorial grounds, as some of the alleged offences occurred within the jurisdiction of the special tribunals of Guayaquil, rather than Quito.
He further found that "insulting language" used in court documents, referring to defendants as "common, vulgar terrorists", "criminals” and “evil” individuals, betrayed a clear lack of impartiality on the part of the judges, and that, despite the 30-day time limit within which an appeals court must pass judgement, 16 months had passed between appeal and judgement. Dr Martinez concluded that the case should be considered juridically null and void.
On 7 December 1974, the co-defendants in the Galarza case, held in Garcia Moreno Prison in Quito, announced a hunger strike. AI issued a news release supporting their demand for unconditional liberty, and protests were made on their behalf in Ecuador itself. The Superior Military Court quashed the sentences and ordered the release of the prisoners, but with one serious qualification: those who had an indictment or detention order against them pending in an ordinary court would remain in prison.
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