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Thanks to a book he wrote and registered in 1997, a former alternate senator has been earning a mega-pension since that year (today about 25 million pesos a month), which has allowed him to earn more than 4 billion pesos so far.
And the Council of State by means of a ruling rejected the claims of the Pensioners Fund of Congress, Fonprecón, to remove the allowance, considering that it did not have that right to the extent that it did not certify the 20 years worked, as required by law at the time .
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This is Blas Alfonso Riaño Uparela, who worked for around 19 years in different public positions (deputy in Córdoba, representative to the Chamber), last occupying his seat in April 1985, when he was acting as alternate senator.
In 1997 Riaño Uparela applied to Fonprecon for the recognition of his retirement and since he did not have the minimum service time for the recognition, which at that time was 20 years, He validated the time he needed to access the right through a book of his authorship called ‘The civil wars of the silly homeland’.
At that time, Law 50 of 1886 was in force, which allowed teachers to homologate a book for two years of service when it was proven that it was used as a teaching text.
The former congressman registered the book in 1997 with the National Copyright Directorate in order to complete the requirements that the text should have had at the time of its production.
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Based on this, Fonprecón recognized the pension effective as of July 17, 1994, an allowance that today reaches 25 minimum wages.
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However, as a result of the review ordered by the Constitutional Court in ruling C-258 of 2013, in 2014 the Fund sued before the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca the administrative act by which it recognized Riaño’s pension, por consider that the book did not meet the legal requirements as it was registered after retirement from service and was not produced while teaching.
Thus, through a judgment of May 19, 2017, the Second Section of the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca acceded to Fonprecón’s claims and declared the annulment of the resolution of recognition of the pension, providing for the withdrawal of the pensioners’ payroll.
But Riaño filed an appeal and through a judgment of July 16, 2020 the Second Section of the Council of State reversed the decision and ordered the Fund to continue paying the pension allowance.
In other words, the high court recognized the pension even though the book was not a teaching text since the pensioner was not a recipient of the special regime. The Council of State ordered to continue paying the pension, considering that given the advanced age of the pensioner, his rights would be violated.
This decision contrasts with others issued by the Council of State itself and the Constitutional Court that have established that the recognition of a pension illegally does not constitute an acquired right.
And this has allowed former congressman Riaño to continue with his mega-pension, despite Fonprecón’s efforts to prevent people from accruing resources to those who have no rights.
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