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After the Investigation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice decided on Monday to send to the Prosecutor’s Office the investigation that it was carrying out against former senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez, the defense of the former president presented yesterday to the prosecuting body a petition to release him immediately.
This is what the lawyer Jaime Granados told EL TIEMPO on Tuesday, who assured that the process can no longer be carried out by the law under which the Supreme Court had it, which is the old system or Law 600, a procedure with which the A high court charged Uribe and ordered his arrest.
Now, says the defense, the case must be governed by the new system with which the Attorney General’s Office has handled cases since 2005, that is, Law 906. In Granados’s opinion, as under this law Uribe has not been charged by the accusing body before a judge, must be released.
(Also read: This is the request for immediate release for Álvaro Uribe)
Uribe’s request for release will have to be resolved by the delegate prosecutor to whom the process is delivered. If the request is accepted, the former president – detained since last August 3 at his El Ubérrimo farm in Córdoba – could be released in 36 hours.
In the decision of the Court, the high court ordered to send copies of the process to the Prosecutor Francisco Barbosa so that “it adopts the determinations that it considers pertinent” and indicated that as Uribe is detained, he will be at the disposal of the proceedings that “will continue in charge of the criminal prosecution entity.”
(It may interest you: After passing his case to the Prosecutor’s Office, could Uribe be released?).
Sources from the Prosecutor’s Office told EL TIEMPO yesterday that they have not yet received the file and that they will only comment on the matter once it reaches them.
From the moment the transfer of the case was announced, a high-level group was in charge of advancing in the study of what will be the way forward on this process, and whether it will be carried out by the old system or by the new penal system accusatory, so, in principle,
The Court’s arguments
In a 64-page unanimous decision, the Investigation Chamber made clear the reasons why it decided to send the prosecution against Uribe to the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the decision, the Court endorsed the arguments of the defense of the former president and the Attorney General’s Office, in the sense that, Following Uribe’s resignation from the Senate on August 18, the high court lost jurisdiction to continue investigating him.
(Also read: The Court’s reasons for passing the Uribe process to the Prosecutor’s Office).
The first thing the Court considered is that the facts that Uribe was accused of as the alleged determiner of procedural fraud and bribery of former paramilitaries Juan Guillermo Monsalve, Carlos Enrique Vélez and Eurídice Cortés occurred when he was a member of Congress, for what at that time “the jurisdiction of the Court emerged as unobjectionable.”
But after his resignation from the Senate, so that the Court could continue to carry out the process They should be crimes of the congressman’s office and not common crimes, which are those committed by any citizen.
In this scenario, says the corporation, as stated by the defense, the crimes for which Uribe is being investigated are common and did not occur “because of the service, on the occasion of the service or in the exercise of functions inherent to the position.”
(We invite you to read: Jurists say that challenge against prosecutor Barbosa will not succeed).
As the jurisdiction of a legislator can be extended even if he resigns from his position, according to the Court, the high court cannot be allowed to lose competence only by the will of the investigated party who leaves the Senate to investigate and judge another different instance. However, he affirmed, “just as it is not possible for the graded person to withdraw from the competence of his natural judge, neither can the judiciary at will impose a certain criterion”, since it must be based on the law and the Constitution.
The Court also evaluated the arguments of Iván Cepeda –Recognized as a victim in the case–, who said that the high court should maintain jurisdiction because the file mentions members of Uribe’s UTL, and because the events, according to him, were derived from a debate on political control that he did.
Regarding the debate on political control, the Investigation Chamber stated that really the historical moment of this process is what happened in 2018, after the Court filed a complaint that Uribe made against Cepeda and ordered an investigation of the former president. This, for the Court, shows that Uribe’s alleged motivation was “far from the quality or status of senator and his functions, and more likely occurred in the context of the legal controversy.”
(Keep reading: Cepeda abides by the decision on Uribe, but will recuse the Attorney General)
The Court also affirms that although “by instruction of the senator”, in the search for testimonies, “members of its UTL actually intervened”, Based on this, it is not possible to “build a solid argument” to say that through this intervention the events were related to Uribe’s functions as a congressman, and thus maintain the jurisdiction of the Court over the process.
INVESTIGATIVE AND JUSTICE UNIT DRAFTING
On twitter:@JusticiaET@UInvestigativa
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