El testigo hóstil en el COGEP y en la práctica del derecho ecuatoriano.

Abstract

Since the commencement of the General Organic Code of Proceedings, there has been a substitution from a predominantly written system to the current one, that provides for greater use of orality to solve legal causes, this Code in its article 177, numeral 7, makes the only mention ibidem of the legal figure called the Hostile Witness, applicable in the interrogation or cross-examination carried out at the hearings while the practice of the testimonial evidence within certain judicial processes. The present titling work analyzes the existence of a legal void, motivated by the lack of norms that can state practical parameters for the declaration of hostility made to the witness, as well as the determination of the legal nature of the figure of the Hostile Witness itself, a situation that in the practice of Ecuadorian law, causes in most cases, its inapplicability. However, the problem extends, since the legal consequence of the declaration of Hostile Witness is to grant the interrogator the faculty to ask leading questions, which is an exception to the objectionable questions prohibited for testimonies by the article number 176 of the COGEP. An accentuated analysis reveals the possible need to eliminate said consequence due to its incompatibility with the Ecuadorian constitutional framework that establishes the right to legal certainty, in addition, this thesis proposes alternatives to deal with the situation of enduring a witness hostile in nature.