“The Attorney General’s Office wants to remove one of the presidential candidates”: Quintero

On the morning of June 12, the former mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, was able to present his closing arguments in the midst of the disciplinary trial against him in the Attorney General’s Office. The control body, which suspended him when he was in office, considers that Quintero participated in politics in the 2022 presidential elections and, therefore, could receive a sanction of the size of an inability to hold public office.

In context: “The change in first”: this was the first round of the trial against Daniel Quintero

The Prosecutor’s Office file is based on three episodes. The first, on March 13, 2022, the day of the interparty consultations in which Quintero uploaded a photo in which the photo of him was seen on the card for the Colombia Humana party. The second, on March 17 of that year, when in a video on Twitter, Quintero would have shown his affinity for that coalition. And finally, the video of May 9, 2022, when in a car the former mayor said: “Change, first.”

According to the charge sheet against Daniel Quintero, with which he was officially called to trial, as mayor of Medellín he was prohibited from participating in politics. In the politician’s closing statements, to begin with, he pointed out that Colombia could be the only country in the world in which politicians are prohibited from engaging in politics. He asked in full audience how a political actor of the nature of a mayor could not fuel a political movement.

Background: Daniel Quintero did not accept charges from the Attorney General’s Office, he remains in a disciplinary trial

Then, Quintero presented arguments related to the independence of Attorney General Margarita Cabello, who he explained was nominated for the position by former President Iván Duque, a political rival of his movement, the Historical Pact. “It is not right that a political actor can remove one of his rivals from the electoral path. The Attorney General’s Office wants to remove one of the presidential candidates. The Attorney General’s Office must make a decision that leaves Colombian democracy alone,” were some of his phrases.

The former mayor of Medellín ruled out the bases of the disciplinary investigation. “We did the study. The first person in Colombia to tweet (on platform We demonstrate that with tests. And the Attorney General’s Office has not been able to demonstrate that this was a campaign slogan. There was none that said ‘change in first gear,’” he concluded. Furthermore, how bad is it that the media had taken photos of his card and that the Registry Office had let them in.

Read: Attorney General’s Office opens investigation against director of the State Legal Defense

For the legal aspects, the disciplinary office gave the floor to its lawyer Héctor Carvajal. An old fox in the disciplinary system, who defended President Gustavo Petro when Alejandro Ordóñez’s Attorney General’s Office removed him from office when he was mayor of Bogotá. Precisely for this reason, Carvajal brought to mind the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, of 2020, regarding the Petro case, with which Colombia was ordered not to try and sanction popularly elected officials again, as was the case. Quintero.

“The Attorney General’s Office has no jurisdiction,” Carvajal concluded. According to the most recent judicial regulations, issued by the Constitutional Court, the Attorney General’s Office is able to sanction elected officials, as long as the Council of State ultimately decides on the case. In the case of Quintero, if he is declared responsible, he will have the right to a second instance in the Attorney General’s Office and a decision from a high court. For the former mayor, this process is nothing more than an attempt to remove him from the presidential race until 2026. The ruling in the first instance will be issued this July 3.

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