President of the Constitutional Court, Judge Nilson Pinilla, said that the initiative is still in the reviewing and data collection process, but the Court is expected to see a presentation of the legislation before 20 December.
If passed, the legislation would permit President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third consecutive term. The Colombian Constitution originally only permitted presidents to serve one four-year term. Uribe successfully campaigned in 2006 to change the referendum to permit his first re-election.
It is as yet unknown how long the constitutional revision of the presidential re-election legislation will take, although the date of 20 December has been put forth, reported newspaper El Espectador.
“This study involves a huge amount of intense work, although it is possible that the legislation could be presented before 20 December, so that during the judicial recess the other judges are able to review it themselves,” Pinilla said.
According to the judge, there is a lot of documentation and material that Speaker Humberto Sierra Porto needs to revise, and that no one can really estimate how long the process of reviewing all of the “voluminious information” might take.
Speaking of the possibility that the plenary sessions of the Constitutional Court be broadcast on television while the referendum is revised, Pinilla said that it would not happen.
“It was considered, but it is not permitted by law … What we can guarantee is total objectivity in the revision that we’re doing,” Pinilla confirmed.