THE ORGANIC LAW OF COMMUNICATION OF ECUADOR, IS IT A REAL MOVE FORWARD IN THE EFFECTIVE EXERCISE OF THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND INFORMATION AND THE CIVIC PARTICIPATION?

The National Assembly of Ecuador approved the Organic Law of Communication on 2013 aiming to guarantee the effective exercise of the freedom of speech and freedom of information as well as to encourage civic participation. This law has been criticized by several organizations such as the Special Reportership for the freedom of speech of the Interamerican Commission for the Human Rights, national and international journalists' organizations and most of the private media of Ecuador. Some of the issues that have been criticized are that the mentioned law qualifies as public service the activity of every media independent on their ownership or format, punishes the omission censorship and the nonexistent neutrality of the authorities in charge of the control of the activity of the media as well. This study analyses whether the Organic Law of Communication poses a real democratization of the exercise of the freedom of speech and information and a strengthening of the civic participation or if, on the contrary, includes regulations that enable the governmental control of private media and, therefore, casts doubts on the sincerity of the Ecuadorian legislator.