Colombia’s State Council is seeking to shield the judicial branch from the application of a Supreme Court law capping congressional pensions at $7,800 or 25 times the country’s minimum wage.
The State Council stated that there is “no constitutional faculty or legality to decide the amount and date for readjusting the pensions of judicial magistrates,” citing the Law 4 from 1992 and Decree 546 from 1971 that dictate judicial branch pensions given before 2010, thus rendering the Constitutional Court’s 2013 C-258 Law supposedly inapplicable.
The controversy began when a former magistrate of the State Council, Gladys Agudelo, tried to recover her pension salary without abiding by the capping plan, the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca denied her petition.
The council’s finding states that those who retire under the guidelines of Decree 546 of 1971, or those with pensions defined before 2010, cannot be affected by the pensions caps.
The State Council now gives legal arguments to ex-magistrates, ex-congressman, ex-prosecutors, retirees and survivors to retirees in order to guard their pensions that were granted before 2013, when the new legislation came into force.
This would in effect be opening the door for judges and magistrates whose pensions were reduced by the Court’s ruling to request reviews and possibly regain losses from, or at least undo future abidance to capped “megapensions.”
Furthermore, since there are several judgments of the State Council raised the revision of the Constitutional Court was the law 4 of 1992 for Congress and not the decree 546 of 1971 governing pensions for members of the Judicial Branch and therefore the decision not would shelter.
Sources
- Se ‘cocina’ choque de trenes por ‘megapensiones‘ (El Tiempo)
- Decisión de Corte Constitucional sobre megapensiones es contradictora: Consejo de Estado (W Radio)
- Nuevo choque de trenes entre altas cortes por fallo sobre megapensiones (Caracol)
