The Superior Court of Ibagué ordered the house arrest for five days of the Colombian president, Iván Duque, for failing to comply with a court order to protect the Los Nevados National Natural Park. The sanction is due to contempt for an order issued by the Labor Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, which declared the natural park located in the Eje Cafetero region as a subject of rights.
According to the sentence published by local media this Saturday, the government headed by Duque did not comply with the creation of a Special Command of the Public Force for environmental crimes in that national park. The court order orders “to impose a measure of house arrest for five days as a sanction”for whose fulfillment the director of the Colombian police or the superior who attends the functions in the Palacio de Nariño, seat of the Executive, will be in charge.
The high court also ordered the imposition a fine of fifteen minimum wages current monthly legal documents to the Colombian head of state “unless compliance with the order considered to have been fulfilled is previously proven”. In December 2020, the Supreme Court of Justice gave the national, departmental and local authorities a peremptory period of one year to implement a joint plan for the recovery, maintenance, management and conservation of the Los Nevados National Natural Park, which considered as a subject of rights to life, health and environment.
Duke’s reaction
“That sentence is more than fulfilled and the reports are there, but other than that the decision is not only unconstitutional, it is not firm, it is an open prevarication“, assured Duque from the Caribbean city of Montería, capital of the department of Córdoba.
The right-wing president explained that his government complies with judicial decisions because with his officials they have been “working to comply with the protection of Los Nevados Park.” He also asked the Attorney General’s Office to act so that “it is absolutely clear and it is possible to know what was the true meaning of a political decision without legal support.”
The natural park is made up of five snowy peaks: Ruiz, Tolima, Cisne, Santa Isabel and Quindío and covers land in the departments of Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda and Tolima, in the center of the country. It houses ecosystems of paramos and high Andean forests, which are characterized by the presence of three snow-capped volcanoes that make it visible throughout the Eje Cafetero ecoregion.