07:50 PM
After the controversy that has been unleashed by the lawsuits surrounding the cow who launched the Government of Antioquia to collect resources to complete the department’s 4G routes, this Wednesday, May 8, a new ruling by the Administrative Court of Antioquia in which a request to access the certification of donations made by several politicians was denied. This petition was an appeal presented by the lawyer Carlos Mario Patiño, the person who has been behind the lawsuits and who has been criticized because he was a contractor in the administration of Daniel Quintero.
The lawyer is the same one who recently filed a lawsuit for loss of investiture against several congressmen who made contributions to the cow, because in their opinion they would have incurred an irregularity, since the donation of the million pesos they made would imply entering into a contract with the Government of Antioquia.
Later, some of the congressmen indicated that They had not made the donation, despite the fact that in recent months they had assured the opposite on social networks, and others would have had their donated money returned. However, no substantive decision is yet known in this regard.
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What several people have already criticized is that Patiño was a contractor for the last mayor’s office, something that he has acknowledged, but which he has said has nothing to do with the lawsuits surrounding the cow. “I participated in Daniel Quintero’s government, but I do not receive his orders. Today I dedicate a large part of my life to litigation. (…) I have more than ten years of career as an activist and lawyer, it is not true that I obey the strategy of some politician,” the lawyer recently said when questioned.
Among the contracts that Patiño signed there is one for an initial value of $74 million, with an execution period of 11 months, signed with the Youth Secretariat, to provide professional services in the “Young Talent” project.
In addition, it signed another in February 2021, for $42 million to be executed in 6 months with the same secretariat, to accompany the “Youth in the Software Valley” program. However, in Secop there is a document in which Patiño requested the early termination of said contract, in April 2021, because he accepted another job proposal, with which he only executed $20 million of the stipulated initial value.
What the new ruling says
Now, the recent ruling of the Administrative Court is part of a process that began on March 23, when Patiño presented a right to petition the Government of Antioquia to request certification of the donations made by Governor Andrés Julián Rendón; congressmen Juan Espinal, Hernán Cadavid, John Jairo Berrío, María Fernanda Cabal, Paola Holguín, Andrés Guerra and Julián Peinado; the councilor of Medellín Claudia Carrasquilla; the mayor of Sabaneta Alder Cruz; as well as other deputies, councilors, senators and representatives to the Chamber who have contributed.
The Government responded to the lawyer, on April 16, that The information requested was confidential because it was related to bank details, Therefore, the plaintiff filed an appeal the next day, arguing that he was not requesting financial information, but rather about the people who made the donation as officials.
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Now, after analyzing the considerations of both parties, the Court considered that the request should be denied given that this information “it is covered by legal restriction, given its close and inseparable relationship with the privacy of the people who are indicated as having made contributions.”
For the judge who issued the ruling, although the donors are people who hold public positions, in the departmental decree that deals with the aspects of the cow it was determined that these are voluntary contributions that any natural or legal person could make, which is why The fact of contributing is in the “private sphere and the circumstance consisting of some donors holding the status of public servants does not in any way conflict with the possibility of making donations of this kind.”
For the Court, This information could be revealed by authorization or express wish of each donor, as many already did on their social networks. “It is necessary not to accede to the request for information and to consider it reserved, a conclusion that, given the violation of the right to privacy that the disclosure of the data would entail, is proportionate, reasoned and appropriate to the regulations cited,” it reads. in the ruling.
For his part, Patiño has remained focused on achieving his lawsuit against the congressmen who contributed to the cow. In fact, this Wednesday, on his X account he published a video in which he said that filed a complaint with the Financial Superintendence against Bancolombia. “For allowing the Government of Antioquia to return the donations of the so-called cow, because they are violating the financial statute in the understanding that that bank has to safeguard the financial resources that were given to it in trust and that return, as I have “This constitutes a worse error than the one they initially committed, so I filed a complaint to force Bancolombia to explain the way in which they delivered those refund resources to the congressmen, deputies and councilors who requested that their donation to the Uribista cow be revoked.” , he expressed.
While he continues his efforts to ensure that donors lose their seats and that their claims prosper, which some experts consider would not have a solid basis, the Government of Antioquia announced that there are already almost 15,000 people who have donated and that The amount of the cow exceeds $5.3 billion, a figure that demonstrates the solidarity of the people in the face of the completion of 4G, but which is very far from the goal of $1 billion that the governor proposed.
For now, a substantive decision is pending regarding what will happen with the claim for loss of investiture presented by Patiño.
