Iván Cepeda announces that he will file another guardianship after the State Council is revoked

Senator Iván Cépeda announced that they will impose a new tutela action after the Council of State declared inadmissible the one presented by several congressmen saying that President Iván Duque did not consult the Senate to allow a mission of the US military in Colombia.

“Unlike the President of the Republic, we do abide by judicial decisions. We respect what the Council of State has said although we do not openly share it “said Cepeda, adding that the ruling of the Superior Court of Cundinamarca ‘defends national sovereignty’ and that Together with the other plaintiffs, they will file a new protection action “to show that this foreign presence violates the right to security, life and peace of communities that are in territories where the peace agreement should be implemented”, said the senator in a video that he shared on his Twitter account.

He also added that they will seek to reach the Constitutional Court so that “the right to sovereignty can prevail”, referring to the ruling in the first instance of the Cundinamarca Court.

Cepeda told Caracol Radio that they are not clear about what (the United States military troops) came to do. “Well, the government’s first argument was to reduce violence and there have been more murders,” he declared.

The Council of State revoked the guardianship ruling that was given in July that ordered President Iván Duque to request an endorsement from the Senate to allow the presence of a US military mission in Colombia.

This jurisdiction explained that the congressmen who presented the guardianship did not prove that they were hindering the exercise of their functions and that they did not make a proposal before the board of directors (of the Senate) so that it has refused to exercise the debate in the plenary session. ” That is, a regular conduit was skipped.

In addition, the ruling says that the official records of the Senate were verified and it was possible to verify that the issue was scheduled for some sessions and that the Defense Minister was summoned to report on the procedure. Therefore, “the senators did not have any type of impediment for the exercise of their individual functions or of control and political participation to the plaintiffs as members of the Senate within the corporation, ”the document reads.

In the plenary session of the Senate, four sessions on the subject were held between June 1 and 10, so this shows that the plaintiffs were able to exercise their control rights and a tutela action was not justified, the ruling says.

Regarding the order issued by the Court of Cundinamarca, the Council of State warned that a “wrong study was carried out, since it concluded that the powers of the Senate of the Republic were unknown without having previously established that the matter actually corresponded to the assumption indicated in numeral 3 of article 174 of the Political Constitution, that is, constitutional protection was granted without the constitutional judge previously verifying or defining what should be understood by ‘troop transit foreign for the territory of the Republic ‘, an issue that, in any case, exceeds its scope of action as guardian of fundamental rights, “for which reason it revoked the first instance ruling given by the Court and declared the tutela action inadmissible.

This would also leave without support the order that that Court gave Duque to rule on the alleged contempt of that guardianship in which Duque was pointed out not to consult the Senate to approve the entry of a mission of the United States Army to Colombia, this because According to article 173 of the Political Constitution, allowing the passage of foreign troops through the national territory is the direct competence of this corporation, which caused the Senate to pronounce and suspend the authorization of said mission. The Defense Minister stated that they did not need the permission of Congress because it was not a transit of troops but a military cooperation.

This is one of the reasons why the minister is summoned to a vote of no confidence debate this October 21 in the Senate, promoted by Roy Barreras, who resigned this week from the party of La U and Jorge Enrique Robledo, from the Democratic Pole .