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This Tuesday, starting at 9:20 am, the hearing to decide the future of the process against former president and former senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez for alleged procedural fraud and bribery of witnesses was resumed, which was suspended on September 16.
Judge 30 of the Bogotá circuit evaluated whether the process should continue under Law 600, under which it came before the Supreme Court of Justice until Uribe resigned and the case went to the ordinary justice system, or if it goes to trial under Law 906, which is the accusatory criminal system.
(Also read: Judge suspends hearing requesting freedom for Álvaro Uribe)
While the civil part, which includes Senator Iván Cepeda, had asked that the process continue as it was in court, the prosecutor Gabriel Jaimes Durán, Uribe’s defense and the Public Ministry affirmed that this must be continued by the accusatory penal system.
The judge suspended the hearing on September 16 to study both positions, and to make a decision on this Tuesday.
In the diligence of this Tuesday, the judge then evaluated whether Uribe’s constitutional jurisdiction should continue his process in the procedural regime with which he began in the Court, or if the general rule should be applied, in the sense in that these processes should go through Law 906, as it is the one that applies to the date of the events allegedly committed by Uribe. This is due to the fact that these two laws coexist and are applied in parallel today in the country.
According to the judge, the general rule is that any crime committed after January 1, 2005 (when the accusatory criminal system came into effect) must be processed by Law 906 of 2004, except in cases of constitutional graduates.
For this reason, he affirmed, Law 600 of 2000 is in force for crimes committed before 2005 and for the trial of members of Congress regardless of the date of commission of the acts.
In this sense, the judge assured, once the jurisdiction for the resignation of the Senate had disappeared, “what proceeds is to apply the general rule in the sense that cases must be processed by the law in force at the time of the events.
That means that the judge determined that since the events for which Uribe is being investigated occurred in 2018, then the process must be carried out by law 906, that is, the accusatory criminal system.
Thus, he said, the referral of the process from the Court to the Prosecutor’s Office does not imply a simple change of instructor -as the lawyer Reynaldo Villaba, representative of Iván Cepeda, had said-, but also leads to the process having to pass to Law 906 from 2004.
Therefore, the judge stated, her position is that she It does have jurisdiction to be able to decide the request on the freedom of former President Uribe.
With the judge’s decision, it is clear to her, then, which is the competent authority to decide if Uribe continues to face the process in house arrest, as he is at the moment, or if he regains his freedom.
If the process continued under Law 600, the prosecutor was responsible for making the decision on Uribe’s freedom. But in the accusatory criminal system, the decision must be made by a guarantee control judge.
However, the judge determined that this decision cannot be made by herself, but must also refer the case to her hierarchical superior. This is why the judge referred the case to the Plenary Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, who will have to define in depth what is the law and penal system under which the case of the former president must follow.
Therefore, he affirmed, only until the Court determines who is competent to define the law by which the case should follow, it will be possible to pronounce on whether former President Uribe is free or not.
(Also: The points that the judge who will decide Uribe’s freedom will have to analyze)
On the other hand, the judge said that only until the hearing for the formulation of the accusation will it be known if the former prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre and the former vice prosecutor Jorge Fernando Perdomo can be victims in this case. He said that for now their participation was allowed to materialize their request to be possible victims in this case.
JUSTICE
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