ENTER TODAY and tomorrow the activity at the auction of the first legislature will be intense. It is expected that in the next few hours the Government will convene extra sessions for a few more days, in an attempt to approve the labor reform in the first debate in the Seventh Chamber Commission, as well as in the plenary sessions, a budget addition for more than $ 17 billion, among others.
In the same way tomorrow, in the plenary session of the House of Representatives, it will be the last opportunity, in its eighth debate, for the constitutional reform that authorizes the recreational use of cannabis in adults, otherwise this controversial initiative will collapse.
It is also hoped in the ruling party that the Seventh Chamber Commission vote on the labor reform in the first debate, after the paper was approved the previous week amid controversy over the way in which the quorum was achieved. Otherwise we will have to wait for the extras.
The plenary session of the House of Representatives was summoned starting at 5 in the afternoon today to vote on four reconciliations of projects approved in all their debates, but which present differences in the text in relation to what was endorsed in the plenary session of the Senate.
These are the bill by means of which the requirements and the necessary procedure for the acquisition, loss and recovery of Colombian nationality are established.
Also the draft statutory law by which measures are adopted to guarantee the equal participation of women in the different branches and bodies of public power; as well as the initiative that orders the issuance of technical guidelines for comprehensive care and mental health care for women and their families in cases of grief due to gestational or perinatal loss.
The fourth project scheduled for conciliation today in plenary session of the Chamber is the one that establishes the State policy for comprehensive development in childhood and adolescence.
Likewise, the plenary session of the House plans to vote in the second debate on several bills, among these by which the treaty on the transfer of convicted persons for the execution of criminal sentences between Colombia and Mexico is approved; as well as the one that ratifies the protocol of amendment of the Marrakech agreement, on fishing subsidies.
While in the Senate, among the projects that will be debated tomorrow, the one that creates the system of progressive guarantee of the human right to food, initiative of the Historical Pact, which is discussed in the first debate, stands out in the First Commission. And in the Seventh Commission the project that dictates special provisions for the consolidation and improvement of the habitat, the construction and the recognition of the property on the housing of social interest and rural priority.
extra sessions
Last Friday, the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco Chaves, announced that possibly the Government will call Congress for extra sessions to continue the process of some key projects.
“There are two bills that necessarily lead us to convene them, basically the budget addition that was approved in the joint economic commissions and the labor reform. These are the issues that are pending and against which we would like to advance a little more,” said the Minister of the Interior to RCN Radio.
The official pointed out that the respective decree for the call for extras to the Congress of the Republic will possibly be issued tomorrow, signed by President Gustavo Petro.
The week before, with 9 votes in favor and 5 against, the Seventh Commission of the Chamber endorsed, in the midst of a great uproar, the positive presentation for the first debate on the labor project, which was the furthest behind in its processing of the three reforms that it presented. the national government, since the pension and health already had the first approval.
This legislative cell chaired by Agmeth Escaf, from the Historical Pact, the base party of the government coalition, called the start of the session at 8 in the morning. However, hours passed and a quorum was not achieved, while uncertainty grew among the labor ministers, Gloria Inés Ramírez; and from the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, due to the luck of the labor reform.
At 10:40 am, the representative Alexander Quevedo, from the Conservative Party, arrived, thus completing the quorum to begin the discussion of the reform, after two weeks in which several failed attempts were made in the Seventh Commission, in that meaning, due to the contrary positions that exist between the different benches.
Subsequently, representative Quevedo left the session, when he had already participated in the vote on three impediments that were approved, so the quorum was counted on 18 congressmen and not on the 21 that make up this legislative cell.
The participation of representative Quevedo in this debate, which, as mentioned, made it possible to achieve a quorum and vote on the paper for the first debate on the labor reform, was strongly rejected by the Conservative Party, since the community is against this project because it considers that would affect the generation of employment and companies, especially SMEs, because it would raise their personnel costs. As a consequence, the parliamentarian was temporarily suspended.
The national observer of the Conservative Party, María Eugenia Correa, reported in a letter that “it was ordered to decree a precautionary measure of temporary suspension of the militant (…) and the separation of all activities of the Colombian Conservative Party, for a term of 90 days, extendable for up to 90 more days, as long as there are sufficient probative grounds that allow a reasonable inference that a disciplinary offense has been committed.”
The president of the Conservative Party, Senator Efraín Cepeda, had warned prior to said debate that “I disavow the entry of any congressman to vote on the labor and health reform.”
Faced with the Conservative Party’s decision on representative Quevedo, President Petro said that “you cannot punish someone and take away their political rights for complying with the law. Remember, according to the American Convention on Human Rights, political rights are only lost by sentence of a criminal judge.
This attitude of President Petro was rejected by the Conservative Party, which in a statement last weekend asked him to refrain from “continuing to interfere and violate the independence and autonomy of the community.”
The panorama for the labor reform in the Seventh Commission in extra sessions is not easy, where the Government requires 11 votes to obtain its approval in the first debate, but apparently in the vote of the paper the charges are divided.
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Regulation of adult use of cannabis
Despite having gone so far in its process, the reform that authorizes the use of marijuana by adults for recreational purposes, for tomorrow in its eighth debate in the plenary session of the House promises to be high voltage. Last week, no progress was made in the vote because the discussion prevailed with positions against and in favor of the measure.
The opposition parties Cambio Radical and Centro Democrático agree with the independent Conservative Party in rejecting this proposal because they point out that it would increase consumption and would be a threat, especially for children.