On campaign financing limits and an eventual impeachment of the president

COLOMBIA - In Brief 08 May 2024 by Andres Escobar

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Norms regulating campaign financing are simple and strict in Colombia. On May 8th, the National Electoral Council (NEC) is considering a draft ruling indicating that, in the 2022 presidential elections, Gustavo Petro’s campaign surpassed the financing limits. We follow the analysis of the renowned constitutional lawyer Juan Manuel Charry on this matter. The Constitutional Court ruled that the president can be removed from office if a serious affront against the campaign financing regime is committed (ruling C-1153/05). Law 1864 of 2017 introduced into the Penal Code the crimes of “financing of electoral campaigns with prohibited sources” (art. 396A), “violation of spending caps or limits in electoral campaigns” (art. 396B). In the case of prohibited sources, the campaign manager and the candidate would be jointly responsible. In the other two cases, the manager or whoever manages the resources would be held accountable. Thus, financing from prohibited sources carries criminal sanctions, without the need to violate campaign spending caps or limits, as is obvious. Now, violation of limits would cause 4 to 8 years in prison, as would omission of information. There would be three types of autonomous and independent responsibilities for violation of the funding limits. One would be of an objective constitutional order, in which it would not be required to prove the fault or fraud of the offender, consisting of the removal from office; another would be of an administrative nature, which would be imposed by the National Electoral Council; and another of a criminal nature, where subjective elements would be considered. On different occasions, irregularities have been pointed o...