Family life

Ecuador's legal framework offers particularly solid protection of the right to family life, grounded in a universalist Constitution that extends its guarantees to all persons, without distinction as to nationality or migratory status. Article 9 expressly recognizes that foreign nationals enjoy the same rights as nationals, which connects with Articles 67 and 44 on the recognition of the family in its various forms (including nuclear, extended, single-parent, and blended families and de facto unions) as the fundamental nucleus of society, and guarantees these rights without distinction as to nationality, extending them to foreign nationals on equal terms. This constitutional structure is the basis on which Ecuador has developed consistent policies that protect family unity even in contexts of human mobility, asylum, displacement, and statelessness.

The organic laws and the codes develop this approach. The Code on Childhood and Adolescence incorporates the best interests of the child and the family environment as central elements of integral development, while the Organic Law on Human Mobility establishes family unity as a guiding principle, recognizes the transnational family as an operative legal category, and governs mechanisms of family inclusion and reunification in the context of international protection. As regards unaccompanied or separated children and adolescents, the regulations provide mechanisms for identification, registration, and interinstitutional protection, with the participation of competent authorities, as well as the possibility of proving family ties through flexible means of evidence, including sworn declarations, in situations where obtaining documentation from the country of origin proves impossible.

On family reunification, the regulatory framework provides specific administrative procedures, distinguishing between family inclusion in pending applications and reunification for persons already recognized. In migration control contexts, the regulations also incorporate guarantees aimed at protecting family unity, including the need for individualized analysis and the suspension of return measures where an international protection application is pending, criteria that the Constitutional Court has developed in its case law in Judgment 212-20-EP/24.

Analysis of the regulatory framework identifies elements that delimit the practical scope of the protection of family life. On family reunification, the regulations govern the administrative procedures and these operate within the international protection system; their activation, however, occurs mainly when family members are in Ecuadorian territory or can enter under the general migration rules. The regulations do not establish a specific visa or travel document regime designed to facilitate travel from abroad for reunification purposes.

As regards proof of family ties, although the regulations provide for flexible means of evidence where obtaining documentation from the country of origin proves impossible, this flexibility operates within the existing procedures and does not amount to an autonomous obligation of substitute administrative assistance on the part of the State. Sectoral regulations likewise do not establish a list of grounds for denial in family reunification matters. These decisions remain subject to the general duty to give reasons for administrative acts under the constitutional framework, which secures the possibility of review but does not entail express codification in the specific legislation.