Colombia’s Constitutional Court suspended an economic emergency declared by President Gustavo Petro in response to a senate commission’s controversial refusal to put the financing of the government’s budget up for debate.
Petro and his cabinet members signed off on the emergency in December in an attempt to close a $4.2 billion (COP16.3 billion) hole in the $142.2 billion (COP547 trillion) budget left by the Senate economic commission.
The Constitutional Court said Thursday that it suspended this decree while its magistrate deliberate on the issue.
According to magistrate Carlos Camargo, the proponent of the suspension, the signatures of acting ministers may not be valid in the case of emergency decrees.
Six of the nine magistrates of the court’s plenary chamber voted in favor of the suspension. Two voted against.
The president o the court, magistrate Jorge Enrique Ibañez, did not vote amid accusations that his opposition to the decree in the press had compromised his impartiality.
The suspension bars the Petro administration from issuing emergency decrees that would allow them to increase taxes to fill the gap in the budget that was approved by Congress.
Tax decrees that had already been issued and reportedly secured an increase in revenue of $273 million (COP1 trillion) remain in force.
In a response, Petro said that the court “rapidly suspends taxes on Colombia’s wealthiest sectors, contrary to the construction of a social state governed by the rule of law as mandated by the Constitution itself.”
The president accused the court of generating a “breakdown of constitutional order.”
We are facing a real breakdown of constitutional order, simply because there is a government that is friendly to working people. As long as it remains in power, any debt costs will not be paid by working people.
President Gustavo Petro
The court is expected to come to a final decision on the emergency decree in a matter of weeks or months.
