On the morning of this Wednesday, August 2, the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, delivered to the Supreme Court the list of candidates who will seek to be successors to Francisco Barbosa Delgado, current attorney general.
The names proposed by the president were Amparo Cerón, Ángela María Buitrago and Amelia Pérez Parra, and it is the first time in the country’s history that the position will be disputed between three women.
Now that the document is in the possession of the High Court, what proceeds is that the resumes of the candidates should be reviewed in the Court, where the suitability of the women to assume the position will be validated. Once the information is confirmed, the Plenary Chamber will be the one to report the name of the person chosen to take office as Attorney General of the Nation from February 2024, when Francisco Barbosa ends his term.
The president’s decision, although it can be disputed, turns out to be a right granted to him by the Political Constitution of Colombia, as stated in recent days by the president of the Court, Fernando Castillo Cadena.
“We do not ask for the list. The President of the Republic, in his legal and constitutional powers, will submit it to the consideration of the Supreme Court when he files it. That can happen at any time, normally it is a period of between 6 and 3 months before the due date of the tax, so we are waiting for it between September and December ”, he explained.
The truth is that the candidates could be a key card in the coming years for the president, after he had several clashes with the current Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, who has criticized several of his initiatives and messages.
The president also took advantage of the document to refer to the case that is being carried out against his son, Nicolás Petro. “Regarding the investigations or criminal proceedings that involve members of my family, I ask you to consider the possibility of appointing an ad-hoc prosecutor so that there are no doubts regarding their transparency,” the letter states.
Attorney General responded to Gustavo Petro’s proposal to “pay not to kill”
With a strong pronouncement, the Attorney General of the Nation, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, questioned on Thursday, July 13, 2023 the proposal made known by the President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, who from Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca) expressed the intention of the Government to pay stimuli to reduce crime in this area of the country.
Although in principle Petro, during his visit to the port, spoke of the ‘University in the territory’ initiative, the purpose of which is to open 1,000 university places for low-income youth, he later sparked controversy over another proposal in which he spoke, explicitly, of “paying not to kill”.
“That program is going to be complemented by what we call young people in peace; there will be thousands of young people who we are going to pay for not killing, for not participating in violence and for studying. We are going to give them help to enter the Seine, which here has a commitment that must be fulfilled, and to enter the university,” said the head of state.
In this regard, Barbosa, within the framework of the 22nd edition of the Pan-American Congress on the Risk of Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and the Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, organized by Asobancaria in Cartagena, responded harshly to the president and warned that this is, words more, words less, an “incentive to criminality.”
Especially when, in his opinion, there are communities that also cry out for help from the Executive and that have not received a response to their requests.
“This is not going to be resolved by paying criminals not to commit crimes, because that is an incentive to crime. This is going to be resolved when we understand that there are millions of Colombians who also need opportunities, who have never committed a crime and want the State to give them a hand to move them forward and for us to push a country within the framework of principles and in which framework of constitutional values,” said the prosecutor. with Infobae