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The maneuvers of the mayor's office of Bogotá to prevent bullfights in Santamaría

2023-01-12T10:15:51.047Z


The Constitutional Court reiterates its order for the bulls to return to the emblematic square and points out to the District that it fails to comply with its ruling that protects bullfighting in the city as a right to free artistic expression


An image of the Santamaría bullring as the venue for an art fair, last September.Diego Cuevas

The Mayor's Office of Bogotá maneuvered to prevent bullfights from taking place in the city.

He managed to bypass the judicial decisions and suspend the bullfighting season of the Santamaría for two years.

The Constitutional Court indicates that the local Administration violated the right to free artistic expression and failed to comply with a sentence of that court that protects bullfighting activities in their traditional conditions.

The three magistrates who sign the sentence, the rapporteur Alejandro Linares and his colleagues Paola Meneses and Antonio José Lizarazo, have spoken decisively on an issue that Congress is hardly even looking at.

Contrary to what appears to be the strongest position in Parliament, where a proposal to ban bullfights is advancing, bullfighting finds support in the Constitutional Court.

Since 2005, the court has upheld a jurisprudence in which bullfighting is recognized as an artistic expression of the human being.

The Constitutional Court has determined that the Mayor's Office acted contrary to a 2013 ruling, at least on two occasions.

When one of its entities, the District Institute of Recreation and Sports (IDRD), tried to tender a contract for the 2022 bullfighting season in Bogotá, in terms that eliminated the traditional characteristics of bullfighting, such as the use of banderillas and death of the bull

"By prohibiting the use of banderillas, rapiers, harpoons, swords, pikes, daggers and puyas, the IDRD is granting the space that should be reserved for the practice of bullfighting for the performance of another substantially different activity", says the Court.

The magistrates have indicated that "far from developing the mandates of that court,

The local Administration, headed by Claudia López, also played with the times so that it was impossible to award the tender for the Santamaría bulls.

"The principles of planning, economy and transparency of public contracting and the administrative function were contradicted, by pretending that the promoter of the event would sell more than 10,000 tickets in just four weeks and through the holiday season," says the court order. .

The Bullfighting Corporation of Bogotá, which took the case to court, maintains that the deadlines "made it impossible for any businessman to appear in the selection process."

When it was learned that for the second year there would be no bullfights for everyone in Bogotá, the Mayor's Office said that the process was declared void because they had not received offers.

The magistrates agree with the bullfighters: “The established deadlines would not have allowed the interested parties to present a viable offer under which it would be possible to carry out the bullfighting season in Bogotá.

Only until January 20, 2022, would the bidder who had been awarded the contract be known, from which time he should advance, among other things, the respective negotiations with the bullfighters and ranches for the definition of the posters, organize the logistics of the event under the particular conditions established in the process, obtain the required sponsorships and sell the bullfighting season ticket office”.

It seemed impossible that bullfighting would return to Bogotá.

Entrepreneurs say the costs of the process also made it difficult to participate.

They had to pay 20% to the IDRD on any income and advertising restrictions were placed on them.

"The established conditions tend to delay, with conditions that are completely unconstitutional, and furthermore, impossible to comply with," the Bogotá Bullfighting Corporation told the magistrates.

Whoever kept the contract had to comply with what the Mayor's Office said: a maximum of three bullfights (traditionally there were five or six), in which no instrument could be used that hurts or causes the death of the bull and allocate a 30 % of the space of the advertising pieces of the event to report the suffering that bullfighting activities cause to the animals involved.

No bullfighter was willing to participate under these conditions.

The Court has said that the Mayor's Office and the Bogotá Council took powers that correspond to Congress, such as changing the structure, established by law, of the bullfighting show, eliminating the death of the bull.

"The competent party to modify said content is the legislator and not the administration."

The highest constitutional court has once again ruled in favor of bullfighting, as it has done in the past, and has ordered the District to guarantee the continuity of the artistic expression of bullfighting and its dissemination.

The local government has not ruled on the court order.

Bullfighting has one of its greatest opponents in the Presidency.

Gustavo Petro managed to suspend bullfighting events in the capital when he was mayor and now, as president, he has asked Congress to approve a law to eliminate any show that mistreats animals.

"The ruling of the Constitutional Court on the Santamaría says that Congress, through the law, is the only entity that can suspend bullfights in places with a proven bullfighting tradition," wrote Petro.

His bench in the Legislature supports the project that seeks to ban bullfights.

They will only end when people stop going, says Christian Garcés, congressman and bullfighter.

"In Manizales the plaza was full," he says optimistically.

Garcés believes that in Colombia more people enjoy bullfighting than is believed.

“We saw it: more than a thousand young subscribers.

The square is almost full, ”he says.

He talks about the January 7 that he just passed, when the Frenchman Sebastián Castella reappeared in that city after his retirement in 2020.

A sector of the Manizales bullring, in January 2023. Courtesy

The next word on bullfighting in Colombia is in Congress, where they are debating its ban.

"The decision of the Constitutional Court to order the return of bullfights to Santamaría is tough, but it strengthens the fight of those of us who are convinced that animals have the full right to live without torture," said animal rights senator Andrea Padilla, who He trusts that Congress will achieve, for the first time, a law that prohibits bullfighting activities in Colombia.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-01-12

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