The Supreme Court of Justice ruled in an official statement, in which it categorically affirmed that the Attorney General does not have a hierarchical superior.
Lightning and lightning rained down on President Gustavo Petro, who affirmed from Spain, where he was on a state visit, in the company of his wife, Verónica Alcocer, that he is the head of the Nation’s Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, who immediately harshly replied to what the head of state said, noting that “the president’s misinterpretations of powers and the separation of powers, hint at what he has previously been alerting: ‘constituent winds’, that is why he asks the first leader who puts his face to the country “.
Several constitutionalists spoke out about the misinterpretation made by the president and ratified that the head of state is not the hierarchical superior of the attorney general, because he belongs to the judicial branch and that in Colombia there is a separation of powers: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.
It should be noted that the Prosecutor’s Office is an entity of the judicial branch of public power with full administrative and budgetary autonomy, whose function is aimed at providing citizens with a complete and efficient administration of justice.
In turn, the Supreme Court of Justice, headed by its president Fernando Castillo Cadena, a court that chooses the attorney general, from a shortlist sent by the President of the Republic, pronounced through an official statement.
In the pronouncement of the Supreme Court of Justice, it affirms that: “With great concern the erroneous interpretation of article 115 of the Political Constitution, carried out and disseminated in the last hours by the President of the Republic, because it ignores judicial autonomy and independence, founding clause of Colombian democracy and essential pillar of the Social State of Law.
It adds that the administration of justice, of which the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation is a part, is the public function that the State fulfills, to protect the rights, freedoms and guarantees of the population and, also, to make effective the obligations enshrined in the legal system. For this reason, in compliance with this function of the State, judges, in their decisions, are only subject to the rule of law, while prosecutors are also governed by strict legality controls in their actions.
The Attorney General of the Nation, who holds the qualities of a high court magistrate, does not have a hierarchical superior and is chosen by the Supreme Court of Justice, from a short list drawn up by the President of the Republic, is an official whose mission is clearly regulated by the legal order and framed in the autonomy and independence of the Judicial Branch.
Ignoring or misinterpreting the foundations of our Rule of Law creates uncertainty, fragmentation and institutional instability.
Finally, the Supreme Court of Justice calls for good sense, respect and sanity that must prevail in the sphere of the principle of harmonious elaboration that governs public powers. Justice is a public duty patrimony of Colombia.