The extant constitution dates back to It opened the way for the reform of a highly centralized system of government. The president of the republic, elected by universal suffrage for a non-renewable term of four years, is the chief executive. He appoints the government, which has to be approved by the Congress.
Legislative power is vested in the House of Representatives members and the Senate members. Colombia is divided into 31 departments and a district.
The governors of the departments are elected by direct suffrage. Since independence the two major political parties have been the Conservative Party, which is now the Social Conservative Party of Colombia PSC , which favors a strong central government, and the Liberal Party, which is federalist in outlook. The former guerrillas of the Movement of 19 April M have also won recognition on the political scene.
Agriculture in Colombia Colombian agriculture contributes The agricultural sector is divided into two types of activities : food crop farming and export-oriented farming, carried out on large estates. Two thirds of agricultural production is farming and one third is livestock rearing. The climate and soil are conducive to the growing of a variety of products such as coffee Colombia is the second largest producer in the world, and this is a vital crop due to the amount of farming land it takes up, and the income it generates.
Other crops are : rice, tobacco, cassava, corn, sugar cane 10th largest producer in the world , cocoa 9th largest producer , oilseeds, vegetables. Cattle is also raised. Forest products are becoming more and more important. As a matter of fact, practically all of Colombia is covered with humid tropical forest containing one of the richest biological reserves in the world.
The ordinary courts include trial courts with jurisdiction in civil, criminal, labor, family, land among other specialized areas; and superior district courts, which decide appeals from judges of judicial districts and circuit judges, and have original jurisdiction over special matters in which the Government and the departments are parties.
The departmental administrative courts hear cases regarding departmental ordinances, municipal resolutions, decisions of departmental and municipal executives; tax matters; etc.
Although i t belongs to the judicial branch, the Constitution confers upon it an independent role so that it can better perform its functions. The Prosecutor General is designated for a four-year term by the Supreme Court which selects one of the three candidates presented by the President. The Office of the Attorney General Procuraduria General de la Nacion is appointed by the Senate from a list of candidates selected by the President and the highest courts, the Attorney General acts as guardian of constitutional rights and liberties , democratic principles, public interests, and the rule of law in general.
The Attorney General shall also file any appropriate action to hold liable public officials who have incurred civil, labor, military, criminal, administrative or disciplinary liability in the course of their official duties. The Office of the Defender of the People Defensoria del Pueblo is an independent body whose mission is to defend and protect human rights and other liberties and interests protected under the Constitution and the laws, in the face of deeds, acts or omissions of the administration.
The Defender of the People is appointed for a four-year term by Congress which selects one of the three candidates presented by the President. The Office of the Comptroller General Contraloria General de la Republica is headed by a Comptroller General appointed for a four-year period at the beginning of each presidential term by Congress, which selects one of the three candidates presented by the highest courts.
This officer shall be in charge of supervising the management and auditing of revenues, expenses, public and national property and transactions of the centralized and decentralized public entities, whatever its forms of organization may be, as well as of other branches of government.
I t enjoys operating, administrative and functional autonomy. It does not co-administer the public sector; it assesses facts, acts, and documents only after the organizations to be audited have finished their accounting exercises.
Its main task is the approval or rejection of the revenue and investment accounts of public funds, the opening of investigations into irregularities, and the application of measures and administrative penalties as appropriate.
The Comptroller General shall call on the Prosecutor General to file the legal actions that may apply. Colombia 's legal system has a legislative origin, grounded on the "written law" as opposed to the "common" or "judicial" law, which is the basis for American, English and Canadian legal systems. Being Colombia a civil law jurisdiction, its legal system has its roots in Roman Law and is heavily influenced by the French Napoleonic Code system and the Italian and Spanish legal traditions, which established written codification of its laws.
As systematic sets of rules pertaining to specific subject-matters, Codes thus emerged not long after the country became an independent nation. The first civil and penal codes appeared in As their models changed, all these codes underwent reforms throughout the twentieth century. Unfortunately, they have not always benefited from the developments occurring in Europe.
A major revision of the Civil Code is still intensely needed. The Commercial Code is also deficient insofar as its drafting, for the most part, has not embraced new ideas concerning business entities and entrepreneurial activity.
The changes have been more significant and responsive to social needs in those areas, as recent code amendments attest. Nowadays, the principal Colombian codifications are the following:. It governs contracts, torts, property, obligations, capacity of persons, marriage, divorce, paternity, guardianship, secured transactions, and succession.
Of particular importance to business is the Commercial Code. For all matters not resolved by the Commercial Code, the provisions of the Civil Code shall be applied. Colombian codification has expanded beyond the traditional areas civil, criminal, commercial, and procedure to cover a wide range of subjects child protection, national police, administrative procedure, etc.
A complete list of and internet access to the Colombian codes is available online. As a rule, codes are organized into books, titles, chapters, articles, and sections.
Titles are subdivided into chapters, which are sequential within their respective title only. Chapters are further subdivided into articles, which are sequential throughout the code. Each article in the code gets a unique number. All one needs to find a particular article is its number, and not the book, title and chapter numbers. The quintessential source of Colombian legislation in the broadest sense of the word is the Diario Oficial, an official journal published since Regular issues are released daily except Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays.
Laws are identified according to a numbering system beginning every year from one. Official chronological compilations of historical value are, among others, the following:.
Electronic access to legislation is available through the Web sites of the Senate from on and the Presidency from August on. Other Web sites providing access to general or special legislation are:. A good number of Colombian codes and laws have been translated into English.
Most of them are available in print. A partial list follows:. A few items are available on line for free:. A few words about the value of jurisprudence in Colombia are in order. In Colombia, codification has not allowed case law to reach the same recognition it has within the Common Law system.
An act or statute that contradicts a judgment may render it useless, and that legal provision is considered mandatory, as long as judges do not believe that it violates the Constitution,.
The role of case law is thus minimized by the tradition of codification and regulation and limited to fill in legislative blanks. Although the three Colombian highest courts are considered the supreme interpreters of the Constitution and laws arising thereof, their decisions are not mandatory for similar cases. The Constitutional Court has its own monthly gazette entitled Gaceta de la Corte Constitucional, which collects its rulings since it started operating in ; there is also a semestral compilation entitled Gaceta Constitucional.
There is no comprehensive official or unofficial regular publication of lower court opinions. Another privately published monthly serial, Derecho Colombiano, features selections of lower court decisions.
Some departments have their own judicial reviews revistas judiciales , which include the most important decisions of their courts. This commercial Web site offers access to the highest court opinions to paying subscribers. As stated above, the publication in the Diario Oficial is a prerequisite to the enforcement of any regulatory instrument in Colombia. The most important decrees and regulations on different subjects are also available in specialized commercial publications.
Of course, the internet is quickly becoming the medium of choice for the dissemination of these materials. The web site of the Presidency features a presidential decree and directive database including decrees and regulations issued from January on and directives from on.
Since Congress regulates all areas of public administration, ministries and other agencies lack rulemaking power. As stated above, however, Ministries do issue resolutions on the matters of their competence. Each homepage of a Ministry site offers links to bodies of its own structure and to others which deal with the same subject. A good number of these sites offers access to statutes, regulations, and resolutions in their respective specialties. The following is a list of those ministries currently offering access to those items:.
Although this brief guide has been devoted mainly to primary sources of legal information, it will conclude with a short list of titles representative of the literature on Colombian law in English. The territorial planning is carried out through a macro division of the territory into territorial entities, which are: the central government, the departments, the capital district, and the municipalities. Land-use planning in the country is guided by Law of , which establishes the technical guidelines, authorities and instruments related to the territorial ordering of municipalities and districts.
Together with Law of and the Law of on land management, the main institutional frameworks that direct and regulate land use and planning processes in the country are established.
The Mission for the Strengthening of the System of Cities was developed during and During the first year, twelve studies were commissioned to define guidelines for national public policies aimed at increasing income, lowering the cost of living and increasing labor mobility in the Colombian system of cities: productivity, cost of living, institutional framework and financing.
To complement this, during the second year, new studies were conducted on quality of life, infrastructure investment requirements and digital connectivity. The following types of cases are seen in these courts: penal, disciplinary, administrative, constitutional, ordinary, military, and peace.
Indigenous issues are addressed by special indigenous jurisdictions. The Lower Courts are divided among various judicial districts. Each district has a Superior Tribunal that is administered by 3 judges, appointed by the Supreme Court. These courts oversee the Civil Municipal courts within their particular district. The senate building in Bogota, Colombia. Amber Pariona August 1 in Politics.
Iroquois Great Law of Peace.
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