Alfonso Velez Jaramillo
House Representative Víctor Andrés Tovar Trujillo was not disqualified when he registered as a candidate for the position in the last legislative elections, according to a ruling by the Seventh Special Chamber of the Council of State, in a process of loss of investiture.
With this transcendental first instance decision of the supreme court of contentious administrative jurisdiction, the congressman remains in his position of popular representation, whose election was demanded by the citizen Gilberto Silva Ipús, who also requested the loss of his investiture.
Silva Ipús, about whom few details are known, but it is known that he has some relationship with one of the losing candidates who did not reach the seat, accused him of violating the regime of disabilities and incompatibilities, provided for in article 177, number 5 of the Constitution Colombian politics.
This sentence was in accordance with my position in the column published in Diario del Huila on December 16, 2021, entitled “Víctor Andrés, is not disabled”contrary to many others of expert lawyers and Huila political leaders interested in the thorny issue.
The publication gave rise to consecutive articles and publications in the press, radio, television and social networks, with different and varied positions, since it is the seat of one of the four representatives of Huila and the one with the highest vote (42,324 (11 71%) for the Congress of the Republic, surpassing experienced political leaders of the department.
In my opinion column, I made a series of considerations in which the figure of “legitimate trust” appears, according to a similar case sufficiently exposed by the former magistrate of the Council of State Alberto Yepes Barreiro, in his specialized space.
Even after consulting the constitutional and legal norms and the jurisprudence and analyzing the event that gave rise to this situation, according to the grounds for the ineligibility of the Colombian Congress.
Legitimate trust, “…is nothing more than an expression that establishes the superior presumption of good faith, of (art. 83 C. Politics) under which all actions of individuals must adhere, fundamentally the authorities and the procedures that are carried out in public offices…)”, according to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court C-131 of 2004.
“In essence, legitimate trust consists in the fact that the citizen must be able to evolve in a stable and predictable legal environment, in which he can trust.” legal certainty.
In that order, the then candidate for the Chamber Tovar Trujillo, before his registration, had consulted the competent bodies about his legal situation, including the National Electoral Council, given that his mother, Dora Liliana Trujillo Pava, was elected mayor of Tarqui, Huila, but the official had previously requested a license from the governor of Huila, Luis Enrique Dussán, to remove himself from office, who granted it by Decree 0328 of October 13, 2021.
Regarding this particular case, the Council of State denied the plaintiff’s claims upon verifying that the defendant congressman had acted in accordance, with the conviction that his behavior was not contrary to law because it was protected by the principle of good faith, sheltered by an invincible mistake.
Even, for having inquired about the configuration of his disability and the answers were negative, so he acted with the certainty that his conduct was adjusted to the legal system.
Thus, the high court warns that this first instance ruling constitutes jurisprudence announced for future cases, taking into account the background of the process and the strictness of article 179 numeral 5 of the political constitution.
The aforementioned constitutional provision prohibits being candidates for “Those who have ties by marriage, or permanent union, or kinship in the third degree of consanguinity, first of affinity, or only civil, with officials who exercise civil or political authority”for which reason from now on, the Council of State will not admit new subjective factors in its scope of application, because it has already been announced.
Thus, the representative Víctor Andrés Tovar, did not incur in the disqualification of loss of investiture due to violation of the disqualifications regime and retains his seat, despite having a direct or first-degree link with his mother, the mayoress, who at the time of her registration and election did not exercise civil or political authority in the municipal understanding of Tarqui, Huila, for having requested a license, and the current congressman, having previously consulted his situation.