Effectiveness of the Constitutional Principle of Legality in the Administrative Management of Public Institutions

Abstract

The irregular application of the principle of legality in public institutions represents a problem for legal certainty, because decisions without competence, sufficient motivation or respect for the procedure can affect the rights of the administered and weaken trust. With the above, the objective of the research was to analyze the effectiveness of the constitutional principle of legality in the administrative management of public institutions, in order to evaluate its practical application and its impact on legal certainty and respect for fundamental rights. The study adopted a qualitative approach with the support of quantitative techniques and a bibliometric design. The information was obtained from scientific articles located in Redalyc, SciELO and Google Scholar, selected according to criteria of relevance, timeliness and editorial quality. The results showed that Ecuador has a sufficient constitutional and legal framework; however, deficiencies persist related to insufficient motivations, failure to meet deadlines, regulatory dispersion, limited training and unequal application of administrative criteria. It was also determined that the observance of legality favors transparency, institutional efficiency and the protection of rights. It is concluded that its effectiveness requires translating the rules into uniform, motivated, timely and subject to control administrative practices.