The judicial citation of the civil lawsuit and the principle of gratuity, in the context of the Ecuadorian legislation

Abstract

In the realization of any civil process, expenses must necessarily be incurred with respect to a series of procedures: expert reports, documents, etc. In the case of the national legal system, emphasis has been placed on this through various declarations at the level of several laws, making it clear that access to the judicial system in Ecuador is free of charge. And in the specific case of the judicial summons of the defendant, this is no exception, such a declaration is reiterated. The present work seeks to establish that there is no parallel or contradiction between the principle of free access to the justice system and the serving of the writ of summons in civil proceedings, even if this is paid for by the interested party, until the judge definitively establishes it through the respective sentence.