Colombia’s Inspector General said Tuesday that if the Supreme Court continues to judge public officials, even those who have given up immunity, then it is violating due process.
According to the Inspector General’s Office, this action seems to demonstrate the commitment of the Court to take powers that are not the Court’s to take, reports newspaper El Espectador.
This was underscored by the case of former Partido de la U President, Carlos García Orjuela, whose trial for parapolitics returned to the Supreme Court instead of being tried by an ordinary court.
The Supreme Court recently ruled it had the jurispudence to try congressmen even if they resigned. Before this, congressmen could avoid prosecution by the high court and be tried by lower courts if they resigned before being indicted. In September, Partido de la U tried to block the Court from hearing parapolitics cases. The Court accused the Party of seeking impunity for colleagues that were being investigated.
“By way of jurisprudential authority the Court is seeking to amend the law of laws and its normative developments,” says the document, unveiled Tuesday by CMI news.
The Public Ministry steadfastly maintains that the Supreme Court is wrong to consider that the conspiracy to commit aggravated crimes charge common to almost all parapolitics cases has any connection with the exercise of parliamentary functions.
Rather, Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez says that it constitutes a clear transgression of normative boundaries that mark the performance of legal work that is carried out by the Supreme Court.
“It is a violation of the guarantees of due process, natural judging, legality and [all other concepts] that complement them,” said the statement.
This is the latest in a series of clashes between the Inspector General and the Supreme Court. Most recently, the Inspector General was inflamed by the Supreme Court’s interviewing of former paramilitaries extradited to the United States without the Public Ministry present.