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Jaime Granados, defender of the former president, formally challenged the ruling of the Bogotá Court that declared inadmissible the protection with which he requested that his client lose the status of accused and the process had to start from scratch in the Prosecutor’s Office.
The decision of the Bogotá Court that declared inadmissible the protection with which the lawyer Jaime Granados, defense lawyer of former President Álvaro Uribe, requested that his client lose the status of accused and the process had to start from scratch in the Prosecutor’s Office . With the challenge, it is now up to the Supreme Court of Justice to take action on the matter. Uribe is facing an investigation for alleged bribery of witnesses and procedural fraud that is currently underway in the Prosecutor’s Office.
The case of the former president has taken different directions and has passed like a “hot potato” from one place to another. Uribe was being investigated by the Supreme Court of Justice which, in August 2020, ordered his arrest while the investigation progressed. Dissatisfied with the decision of the high court, the former president decided to resign from his seat and, thus, his case passed to the Prosecutor’s Office. Already in the ordinary justice system, a guarantee control judge restored Uribe’s freedom and, later, in November 2020, the 4th Criminal Judge of Bogotá confirmed that decision. (You may be interested: Álvaro Uribe’s defense will ask the Supreme Court to review guardianship of his accusation)
However, on that occasion, the judge also determined that the investigation that the former president gave before the Supreme Court, when that Corporation was in charge of the process, could be equated with the imputation of charges. In this sense, Uribe’s accusation was final and the Prosecutor’s Office will be responsible for deciding whether to file an accusation or request that the investigation be closed. However, for Jaime Granados, the decision of the judge who took his client’s imputation for granted is completely wrong.
This was justified by means of a protection action against the 4th Criminal Judge, in which he requested that the fundamental rights to due process and the defense of his client be protected and that the decision of that office be left without effect in what related to the imputation. However, last week the Bogotá Court declared the guardianship inadmissible for various reasons, among them that within the criminal proceeding against the former president there are “suitable and expeditious means of judicial defense to demand the protection of the rights to due process and defense, which have not been exercised ”. (Related article: Álvaro Uribe: they declare inadmissible guardianship that sought to return his process to zero)
Despite the denial of guardianship, Uribe’s defense acted again and this Monday, February 1, challenged the rejection of guardianship. In the challenge, Granados again asks that it be declared that Álvaro Uribe’s rights to due process and defense have been violated, while they are giving him the status of a defendant, in accordance with Law 904 of 2004, without having it. Furthermore, contrary to what was stated by the Court, it indicates that “the attacked decision does not have any other means of judicial defense that can be activated (…) the controversy could well have been raised at a later stage in the process -even in cassation- But it is clear that this does not meet the conditions of suitability and efficiency of the appeal for protection to safeguard the fundamental rights affected ”.
The defender added that, although the Prosecutor’s Office has several procedural options and can activate them such as estoppel, accusation or the principle of opportunity -as stated by the Bogotá Court-, “this would leave the plaintiff’s guarantees subject to the procedural behavior of a third party. state (the Prosecutor’s Office), an issue that conflicts, precisely, with the guarantee of due process that the affected party directly preaches ”. Likewise, Granados explained that all these options start from accepting the decision that takes for granted an accusation that not even the Prosecutor’s Office, as the person in charge of carrying out the criminal action, has for granted.
Now, the arguments of the defender to attack the accusation of his client will go to the hands of the Supreme Court of Justice, which must rule on the matter. In this case, the high court could declare the appeal inadmissible, if it considers it so, or, on the contrary, rule on the merits of the thorny case that it knows well.
