The Re-election of Uribe in the Constitutional Court
Ricardo de Lima
Essayist
Immediate re-election, that is to say, the constitutional right of the President of the Republic of Colombia to maintain power for a new term at the end of his first mandate was approved last December in the Congress of the Republic. The debate was intense, and so were the anomalies. A senator of the First Commission of the Senate of the Republic, Darío Martinez, pointed out that he had entered 17 faults in the eight debates that are required in Colombia for constitutional reform to be passed.
A brief pursuit of immediate re-election in its passage by Congress, to the light of the norms contained in the internal procedures of the Congress, that is to say, of Law 5 of 1992, allows us to infer that if serious faults of procedure appeared or, as they are called, "vices of form", the Constitutional Court’s recent ruling on the Anti-terrorist Statute, declaring it unconstitutional, would also apply here. Some of the more prominent faults are the merry-go-round serious incapacities and incompatibilities in which members of the two Houses incurred.
Indeed, to obtain their support the government of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez distributed positions and bribes. Several of the senators who approved the re-election were awarded with embassies for their closest relatives. Just two examples will be given here so as not to tire the readers with too much detailed information. The ambassador named for Sweden is the Vallecaucano politician Carlos Holmes Trujillo, brother of Senator of the Republic Jose Renán Trujillo. The ambassador in France is the son of Senator Enrique Gómez Hurtado. Both were initially barred from voting, but reeleccionistas like Germán Vargas Lleras, at that time President of the Senate of the Republic, inaugurated the merry-go-round: I declare myself disqualified to vote on the reform because I have relatives in the State, but so-and-so absolves me and votes that I am not disqualified. When the concern shifts to so-and-so who also has siblings that are ambassadors or other highly-positioned civil servants in the State, who had impeded me, I vote that this so-and-so is disqualified.
Additionally in the Senate, the voting was very burda, since, traditionally the Ethics Commission decides on the disqualifications. Then there are the parliamentarians of various commissions and on this occasion the friends of immediate re-election do not have the majority in the Commission, so they had to recourse to their own First Commission in which the debate developed, amongst other themes, about the inabilities and incompatibilities, in the end lifting the impediments for conflicts of interest.
It was also well-known that, in reality, the fourth debate did not happen. Indeed, in the voting of the First Commission of the House bribes of parliamentarian aid secured the votes of Representative Yidis Medina, validating again that the executive resorts to parliamentary aid to obtain support for government projects and, in this case for his own immediate re-election. Also purchased was the attendance of the parliamentarian Teodolindo Avendaño, to obtain the necessary votes so that the project was approved. In reality, the debate did not happen. On this matter, the Constitutional Court has been strict. In addition to these anomalies, others appeared, such as the decision to not put the report of the Conciliation Commission under debate. Along with these, as was already indicated, at least 14 other violations to Congressional rules occurred. This is the content of the seven demands that have been interposed before the Constitutional Court so that the legislative act is declared null or, in legal terms, so that the Court declares the Legislative Act unconstitutional.
A second type of demand has to do with which they request that the Constitutional Court declares the Legislative Act unconstitutional due to violating the basic principles of the Political Charter. The Constitutional Court in the recent failure regarding the Anti-terrorist Statute declared that Congress has limitations in its ability to reform the Constitutional Charter. Indeed, the Colombian Congress could not instill the death penalty or slavery. According to the plaintiffs, the Court must declare that the reform violates the principle of equality, which is a pillar of the Constitution; no reform to the Charter can violate this principle. Here the argument is two-fold: first, the principle of equality is violated by not allowing other high-ranking civil servants of the State to aspire to be President of the Republic, as was the case of the Mayor of Bogotá or the Governor of Valle, who, in agreement with the existing legislation, is not qualified to run as a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. But also, as was recently noted, ex-president Alfonso López Michelsen in his El Tiempo column, the legislative act puts at disadvantage candidates who do not demonstrate the ability to deal with budgets or state payrolls. In Colombia, using the State Treasury for electoral aims is common. It has already been denounced that 40% of the total of the 3000 kilometers of highways scheduled for these next two years will be built in order to gain favor with the regional leaders and politicians on the part of President Uribe with a view to his re-election campaign.
Until now, the Constitutional Court has defended the Social and Democratic State of Right contained in the Political Charter of 1991. Their failures have clashed with the authoritarian and undemocratic project of Uribe and they have become a barrier that was, until now, insurmountable for these delaying sectors that want to return us to the old stately republic. Exactly for this reason, President Uribe has declared on numerous occasions his intention to reform it or abolish it. Nevertheless, the Court is popular and also has substantial social and political endorsement. It was not easy for it to shed the referendum or declare the Anti-terrorist Statute unconstitutional. Facing these great challenges, the Court has become conceited. Let us hope that on this occasion it rules wisely for the good of Colombia.
