2023-05-06 05:26:00
The verbal war of the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, and the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosaunleashed a clash of powers after the president assured that he is the boss of that official, who in turn announced that his family will leave the country for safety due to the controversy.
The discussion started on Friday, May 5, Petro, who assured in statements to the press in the Spanish city of Salamanca that as head of state “he is demanding” information about a case and “not insults from someone of whom” he is “only the administrative head and no morebut that deserves an answer to the head of state”.
“The prosecutor forgets one thing that the Constitution orders: I am the head of state, therefore his head,” Petro said.
Petro’s statement came amid a controversy he has had for months with the attorney general, who has questioned the president’s decisions, mainly related to his policy of total peace.
growing controversy
Petro’s statements sparked controversy, especially in the judicial branch, which expressed its concern because it considers that the president is making a “wrong interpretation of article 115 of the Constitution.”
What the president said, according to the Supreme Court of Justice, ignores “the autonomy and judicial independence, founding clause of Colombian democracy and an essential pillar of the social rule of law”.
The high court reminded the head of state that “judges, in their rulings, are only subject to the rule of law, while prosecutors are also governed by strict legality controls in their actions.”
Rodrigo Uprimny, a researcher for the DeJusticia organization and a professor at the National University, assured that It is “constitutionally absurd” for the president to say that because he is head of state “then he is head of the attorney general.”
“Unlike other countries like the United States in which the prosecutor (…) is subordinate to the president, in Colombia the attorney general is independent since he is part of the judicial branch. So he does not have a boss,” said the jurist.
However, he also criticized Barbosa because he considers that “as seems to be in the campaign he jumped to describe Petro as a dictator and to feel threatened”, something that he considered an “unacceptable reaction”.
“I wish they both put the national interest first,” Uprimny said.
Meanwhile, former President Iván Duque, Petro’s predecessor, said on Twitter: “Being head of state does not mean being emperor and trying to submit the independence of powers and control agencies. The Prosecutor’s Office is not subject to the whims of any ruler. Pretending to do so is breaking the constitution.”
Being Head of State does not mean being emperor and trying to submit the independence of powers and control agencies.
The Prosecutor’s Office is not subject to the whims of any ruler.
To claim it is to break the constitution.— Ivan Duke (@IvanDuque) May 5, 2023
prosecutor’s fears
Barbosa, for his part, told the radio station La FM that “The president’s statement is an attack against the Constitutionthe Judicial Branch and the division of powers in Colombia”.
Hours later, the official He assured that his family will leave the country for “fear that they will be assassinated because of what has happened today in Colombia.”
“This is not a game, this is not a mechanism that can be taken lightly. Gustavo Petro is not the head of the opposition in a country, he is the head of state,” Barbosa said in a statement to the press.
In this sense, Barbosa assured that “in this country they have assassinated Colombians such as (the politicians) Luis Carlos Galán, Rodrigo Lara and many others, who were declared State crimes.”
Likewise, the prosecutor said that he will review with his team the legal actions for Petro’s advertisements.
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