Summary
In 2012, Jefferson Antonio Loor Moreira—a shrimp businessman—presented an extraordinary protective action against the sentence handed down on March 10, 2012, by the judges of the First Civil and Commercial Chamber, of the Provincial Court of Manabí. The Court had declared the violation of the collective rights of the El Verdun Commune, due to the displacement of 70 families that had ancestrally occupied the area where Loor wanted to create his shrimp company, but determined there were no violations of the rights of Nature. The area of the El Verdun Commune is a mangrove-type ecosystem which residents rely on to fish.
In the first instance, the court determined that there were no violations of either collective rights or the rights of nature because Loor demonstrated the legality of the adjudication of the area and there was no damage to the ecosystem of the mangrove swamp.
In the second instance, the Provincial Court of Manabí declared the violation of the right of the El Verdun Commune and noted the importance of restoring the mangrove ecosystem and the conservation for the subsistence of their ancestral lands. The extraordinary protection action was presented before the Constitutional Court where the nullity of the sentence was determined and the process was returned to the Provincial Court so that the instance could be resolved again.
The Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff because the use of the area that contains mangroves is limited in its domain, and its use requires corresponding permits, which the plaintiff provided. The Constitutional Court again referred the case to the Provincial Court, for it to issue a new resolution on the case. A new sentence was issued within the Criminal and Traffic Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Manabí, which was challenged for lack of reasons through an extraordinary protection action filed by the representative of the El Verdun Commune.