Office of the Attorney General of Colombia
Fiscalía General de la Nación | |
Agency overview | |
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Formed | July 6, 1991 |
Headquarters | Diagonal 22B 52-01 (Ciudad Salitre), Bogotá, Colombia |
Annual budget | COP$1,437,526,644,588 (est. 2010)[1] |
Agency executives |
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Child agency | |
Website | www |
The Office of the Attorney General of Colombia (Spanish: Fiscalía General de la Nación; literally "General Prosecutorial Office of the Nation") is the Colombian institution part of the Colombian judicial branch of Government with administrative autonomy designed to prosecute offenders, investigate crimes, review judicial processes and accuse penal law infractions against judges and courts of justice.[2] The Office of the Attorney General was created by the Colombian Constitution of 1991 and began operating on July 1, 1992.
An investigative process is initiated either by the institutions' own initiative or after a denouncer has made authorities aware of the case in a police station or in a Quick Reaction Unit of the Attorney General's Office.
Attorney General
Election process
The attorney general is elected by Colombian Supreme Court out of a ternary presented by the president for a period of four years. To cast the final vote, the Supreme Court of Justice must meet a quorum of 16 out of the possible 23 votes, i.e. two thirds of the votes.
List of attorneys general
Order | Name | Years in office |
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1st | Gustavo de Greiff Restrepo | 1 April 1992 – 17 August 1994 |
2nd | Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento | 18 August 1994 – 8 May 1997 |
3rd | Alfonso Gómez Méndez | 3 July 1997 – 3 July 2001 |
4th | Luis Camilo Osorio Isaza | 1 August 2001 – 1 August 2005 |
5th | Mario Germán Iguarán Arana | 1 August 2005 – 1 August 2009 |
6th ad interim | Guillermo Mendoza Diago | 1 August 2009 – 12 January 2011 |
7th | Viviane Morales Hoyos | 12 January 2011 – 6 March 2012 |
8th | Martha Lucía Zamora Ávila | 6 March 2012 – 29 March 2012 |
9th | Eduardo Montealegre Lynett | 29 March 2012 – 28 March 2016 |
10th ad interim | Jorge Fernando Perdomo | 29 March 2016 – 1 August 2016 |
11th | Néstor Humberto Martínez | 1 August 2016 – 15 May 2019 |
12th | Fabio Espitia Garzón | 17 May 2019 – 12 February 2020 |
13th | Francisco Barbosa Delgado | 13 February 2020 – present |
History
Former attorney general Luis Camilo Osorio, whose four-year term ran from 2001 to 2005, was criticized by Human Rights Watch. They accused him of undermining investigations into human rights violations by retiring or forcing the resignation of several investigators.[3]
In November 2023, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project joined with more than 40 media partners including Cerosetenta / 070, Vorágine, the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) and Distributed Denial of Secrets and journalists in 23 countries and territories for the largest investigative project on organized crime to originate in Latin America, producing the 'NarcoFiles' report. The investigation was based on more than seven million emails from the Colombian prosecutor’s office which had been hacked by Guacamaya, including correspondence with embassies and authorities around the world. The files dated from 2001-2022 and included audio clips, PDFs, spreadsheets, and calendars.[4][5] The investigation revealed new details about the global drug trade and over 44 tons of "controlled deliveries" carried out to infiltrate the drug trade[6][7] and how criminals corrupt politicians, bankers, accountants, lawyers, law enforcement agents, hackers, logistics experts, and journalists in order to use logistical, financial, and digital infrastructures.[8]
References
- ^ Ley de Presupuesto General de la Nación 2010 (PDF), Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, 2010, pp. 50–51, retrieved 2010-11-23
- ^ "Identidad Corporativa" (in Spanish). Office of the Attorney General of Colombia. Retrieved 2008-11-29.
- ^ "Colombia: Attorney General Undermines Human Rights Investigations". Human Rights Watch. 2002-10-07. Retrieved 2008-11-29.
- ^ OCCRP. "What Is 'NarcoFiles: The New Criminal Order'? Everything You Need To Know". OCCRP. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
- ^ Project, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting. "NarcoFiles: The New Criminal Order". OCCRP. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
- ^ "The Highway to Europe: Inside a Global Drug Collaboration - OCCRP". The Highway to Europe: Inside a Global Drug Collaboration - OCCRP. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
- ^ Vélez (CLIP-OCCRP), Kevin G. Hall (OCCRP), Nathan Jaccard (OCCRP), Jacqueline Charles (Miami Herald), and Juanita. "Colombian Leak Gives Rare Glimpse Into Secretive World of 'Controlled' Drug Deliveries". OCCRP. Retrieved 2023-12-24.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Radu, Paul. "The Transnational Public Enemy". OCCRP. Retrieved 2023-12-24.