Colombia’s Senate on Tuesday approved the dismissal of Piedad Cordoba after the country’s Inspector General said the dissident politician is now officially a “former senator.”
The Senate commission studying the case of Cordoba, who is barred from holding public office for 18 years because of alleged FARC ties, took less than a day to confirm the ruling of Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez.
Cordoba complained that the Senate commission did not use any of the ten legally allowed days to debate and possibly object to the decision, and said she would look for other means to undo the ruling of the Inspector General, who she claims “lacks the moral authority” to dismiss her.
The former senator has not stopped attending Senate meetings, which according to Ordoñez is “the problem of the doormen.”
Ordoñez is being investigated by the Supreme Court for possibly overstepping his duties in dismissing a democratically elected official.
The inspector general said he was calm about this investigation and that the country’s highest court “has to study the 1991 constitution which grants jurisdiction to investigate disciplinary offenses of all public officials, including those who were elected.”