Why should the National Development Plan return to Congress?

Through a concept made known last Wednesday -April 10- and that was not expected by the different political and governmental actors in the country, the Constitutional Court ordered that the National Development Plan that was approved last year , has to return to Congress to correct a serious procedural defect.

Specifically, the decision of the high court falls on the President of the Senate, Iván Name, who must put to a vote the reconciled articles of the law of the National Development Plan, Law 2294 of 2023, to correct the vice. due to the non-publication of the conciliation report on time.

This whole problem arose because during the process that this initiative underwent in the Legislature, a conciliation was reached between the Senate and the House of Representatives, as always happens when different texts are approved in these two chambers, but the text of this agreement It was not published on the Senate website.

Government and Congress would be close to an agreement to unblock the pension reform

Thus, “non-publication the day before approval in the Senate of the articles reconciled in the law of the National Development Plan, is a defect in the legislative process that, under strict criteria, can be corrected in application of the paragraph of article 241 of the Constitution,” according to the Court.

A hearing at the Constitutional Court.

PHOTO: Constitutional Court

This decision was adopted in response to a lawsuit against Law 2294 of 2023 (Development Plan), due to procedural defects, in which the aforementioned failure was argued and which must now be corrected with this new vote in the Senate. who these days is on a pretty tight schedule.

Diesel subsidy will be eliminated: large consumers, the first to feel the effect

The board of directors of this legislative chamber must also report to the Constitutional Court on compliance with this ruling and send a copy of the respective Plenary minutes, so that the Constitutional Court can rule definitively on the constitutionality of Law 2294 of 2023. regarding the admitted position (violation of the principle of publicity) in the reference file.

These cover a wide range of areas, such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable transport, waste management and biodiversity conservation.

iStock.

“In this case, the exceptional possibility of correcting the procedural defect was established in application of the upper paragraph of Article 241 with limits, under strict criteria of constitutional interpretation and in response to the special circumstances proven in the present matter,” the Court closed by saying.

Ecopetrol plans to invest 360 million dollars to put more gas on the market

In short, the whole problem arose because the senators and public opinion should have known the text that was voted after the conciliation, which did not happen and this constitutes a violation of the principles of publicity and transparency of the processes carried out daily by Congress.

Colombian pesos

iStock

When asked by the media about this fact, the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, indicated that “in reality, what we still know is the press release, we still do not have the decision, but what we have understood is that there was a demands for a moment of publication of the plenary decisions and that what must be reviewed is the moment of conciliation between the Senate and the Chamber for the final decision.”

Guide to electronic invoices for 'dummies': what users and businesses should know

“What is invoked is that there was no publication on the precise day, but it was published with the time of the next day, midnight, early morning, and therefore the conciliation had to have been done in another way. That is what we understand from the Court's decision, but obviously we still only know the press release,” said this official.

Ricardo Bonilla, Minister of Finance and Public Credit

Screenshot

One of the situations that draws the attention of analysts and experts in this matter has to do with the fact that although it seems like a simple approval procedure for the National Development Plan, we must not overlook that at this time the relations between the Government and Congress are not the best and this could delay the projects that The Casa de Nariño is already promoting, such as the pension reform.