According to expert lawyers, general counting of votes for the Senate would not have legal backing

The issue of counting votes in the past legislative elections, in which various political sectors denounced that they lacked votes, has caused a lot of stir in the country, given the situation the national registrar, Alexander Vega, asked for a general recount of the vote to the Senate of the Republic.

This proposal must be studied and approved or denied by the National Electoral Council. Given this situation, renowned jurists have cited current legislation and do not see it possible to have a general account of the scrutiny process.

Although this mechanism is provided for in the Constitution to clarify doubts that arise in the pre-count. One of those who said was attorney José Gregorio Hernández on his Twitter account: “With chain of custody already closed and judges' decisions in the count, the general recount is not valid, in the light of current regulations.”

He was joined by Hector Riveros and said that “I don't understand how this works. The Registrar is not an electoral authority. He has no power to order a recount of anything. That is the decision of those who do the scrutiny. I don't know if it was done like this, but he shouldn't even announce it.”

Asonal Judicial, an organization that brings together judicial servants, was also pronounced. “Comrades and fellow judges from all over the country a ghost travels the homeland geography, to the serious irregularities of E14, irregularities with E24 are announced nationwide. The judges of the republic, in fulfillment of their constitutional function on March 13, attested, as justice administrators and electoral officials, to what was the true will of the Colombian people at the polls,” a spokesman for Asonal Judicial said in a video.

He added that “we have reports from dozens of judges in the country that after a week from nine in the morning to nine in the evening they reported votes by organizations such as the Historical Pact, among others, in the end the E24 act ended up placing zero votes, where they had found hundreds of votes.”

Likewise, in a statement, the organization stated: “It has cloaks of doubt about the neatness and righteousness of judges, magistrates and high courts, as happened recently, when the President of the Republic stated, referring to the Constitutional Court ruling that decriminalized abortion in Colombia, that five (5) people they could not decide for an entire country. This demonstration at the head of the president, who has been entrusted by the constitution with the mission of respecting and enforcing judicial decisions, is nothing more, nothing less than an uprising to the country's institutions and an invitation to be violated, not only against justice, but also against its members.”

They pointed out that “we demand from the national government to put an end to all these attacks against the judiciary that denature and delegitimize judges and we call on all democratic personalities, workers, students and civil society, as well as the international community, so that, in defense of democracy and transparency of the electoral process, surround judges, support their work and respect the minimum constitutional principles on which a democratic State is based”.

It should be noted that, the National Electoral Council must approve or reject the registrar's request to make a general account of the election to the Senate.

Keep reading: