After several failed days of electing the Attorney General, today, March 12, 2024, in an extraordinary session, the Supreme Court with its 23 judges elected Luz Adriana Camargo as the new Attorney General of the Nation.
The Supreme Court did not take into account the resignation of Amelia Pérez and continued with the voting to elect one of the candidates for President Gustavo Petro. After a single round of voting, the prestigious jurist Camargo was chosen with 18 votes, while Ángela Buitrago only obtained 2 votes. Two other magistrates voted blank and, despite Pérez’s resignation, she obtained one vote.
“The presentation of a resignation, ten minutes before the Plenary Chamber began, was completely inane,” said the president of the Court, Judge Gerson Chaverra. With this, the Court confirms that the resignation has no influence on the manner of action anticipated by the high court.
The name of the current prosecutor was part of the three candidates proposed by President Gustavo Petro at the end of last September, during his appearance before the Supreme Court to present a new shortlist. Initially, Petro had presented a first list in which the lawyer Amparo Cerón appeared instead of Camargo Garzón.
The appointment of this official, who succeeds Francisco Barbosa, generated intense controversies. This was due not only to the fact that the shortlist was made up exclusively of women, but also to the numerous complaints from different sectors of the country alleging pressure on the Supreme Court to expedite the election of the new prosecutor.
Who is Luz Adriana Camargo?
Luz Adriana Camargo Garzón is a lawyer from the Universidad de la Sabana and a specialist in Criminal Law-Criminology from the Universidad Libre de Colombia.
Throughout her working life she has served as an assistant magistrate of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice where she investigated the parapolitics scandal in the country, which was the alliance between the political sector and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. .
Also, he was part of the group of lawyers who was with the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, in the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala from October 1, 2013 to September 3, 2019. There he managed to dismantle numerous structures of corruption and the conviction of more than 50 congressmen.