There is already a date for the hearing against the election of registrar Alexander Vega

The judge of the Fifth Commission of the Council of State Luis Alberto Álvarez Parra finally paid attention to the proceedings against the election of the National Registrar of Civil Status, Alexander Vega, who had been in his office since 2019. To continue the case, which is actually the sum of three different demands, the counselor summoned several witnesses and requested evidence material.

Among other things, Álvarez cited the three magistrates who at the time presided over the high courts and decided to elect Vega: Gloria Ortiz, a judge of the Constitutional Court who was president of that corporation for the period 2019-2020; Lucy Jeanette Bermúdez, a judge of the Council of State; and Álvaro Fernando García Restrepo, magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice.

In addition, the ad hoc secretary, Juan Enrique Bedoya, will be heard, who would have additional information about the aspiring registrars who arrived at the Social Center of Police Officers (Cespo) —including attendance forms—those present at the interviews and the circumstances that led to the changes at the last minute.

The councillor also asked for the link that was allegedly provided to ensure that the interviews were public, media invitations to the event and evidence that there were riots that day in downtown Bogotá.

There are several arguments in the lawsuits imposed in 2019 against the election of the registrar. One of them is the score that Vega obtained in the qualifying knowledge test: 453,423 points. In theory, only the first ten scores would be called for interviews, as long as they had scored 500 points or more.

Although the score achieved by the current registrar did not reach that threshold, Vega was summoned to the interview. There he scored 285 points out of 300 possible, a qualification enough to take the position.

As if that were not enough, the lawsuits say that Vega “does not meet the constitutional and legal qualities and requirements to have been elected as such.” To reach that position, the registrar had to demonstrate 15 years of experience in the judicial branch, the public prosecutor's office, law or the university chair on legal issues.

Despite this, Vega put on his resume that he worked in two different places at the same time: he was deputy chief, consulting lawyer and litigator at the Martínez & Vega Abogados Business Law Group, while he was executive director of Transparency Electoral.

The plaintiffs say that these simultaneous work experiences cannot add up to double seniority within the public tender, so that Vega would have a total of nine years, ten months and four days of experience prior to his election as a registrar. Failure to comply with this requirement would constitute a violation of paragraph four of article 232 of the Political Constitution of Colombia.

Finally, the demands also indicate that the place of the interviews was changed at the last minute: they were not held in the Palace of Justice, as is customary, but at Cespo. Moreover, it was not done publicly, but behind closed doors.

The argument that was made on October 10, 2019 to change the venue and close the doors of the public was a series of demonstrations that caused noise and disturbances of public order in the vicinity of the Palace of Justice. The counselor shall determine the appropriateness of this decision.

Until this Wednesday, when the issue was reactivated, the investigation had been abandoned because an official of the Attorney General's Office had declared herself unable to handle the issue; three years have passed since that.

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