Luz Adriana Camargo is the new attorney general of Colombia

Colombia has a new attorney general.

The judges of the Supreme Court of Justice determined this Tuesday that Luz Adriana Camargo will take the place of the interim Martha Mancera, who has been in office for a little over a month after replacing Francisco Barbosa, her former boss.

In a full room convened only to make the decision, and framed by the resignation minutes before one of the shortlists, Amelia Pérez, 18 of the 23 magistrates opted for Camargo.

It is now up to Buitrago to lead a powerful institution with a robust bureaucracy—close to 23,000 officials—and whose main mission is to carry out criminal investigations and accuse crimes before judges and courts.

The challenge that lies ahead over the next four years is not easy.

In the midst of the political frenzy that was generated in the last 19 months by the confrontations between Barbosa and President Gustavo Petro, there is a complex reality in the country around crime and impunity that deserves to be addressed urgently.

Camargo was the last lawyer to enter the shortlist.

She replaced former prosecutor Amparo Cerón, whom the president removed from his deck after questions arose about the way she handled the criminal investigation into the Odebrecht scandal.

The new prosecutor studied Law at the University of La Sabana, a prestigious academic center located on the outskirts of Bogotá and owned by Opus Dei.

Her recognition as a prosecutor dates back to the investigations she carried out in the first decade of the century on the phenomenon of parapolitics, as an assistant magistrate of the Supreme Court, and to her work in the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala ( CIGIG).

On both occasions she worked closely with the current Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez.

As a result of his efforts in the Central American country, where he carried out investigations into different corruption schemes, the Guatemalan authorities opened legal cases against both of them.

“It is a case that makes no sense,” said Juan Pappier, acting deputy director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch, at the time, in dialogue with EL PAÍS.

The new attorney general was part of the special monitoring team of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that investigated the murder of journalists Javier Ortega, Paúl Rivas and Efraín Segarra, members of the editorial staff of the Ecuadorian newspaper

El Comercio

, which took place on the Colombian-Ecuadorian border in March 2018. The crime was the responsibility of the illegal group called the Oliver Sinisterra Front, a dissident group of the extinct FARC that at that time was led by Walter Arizala, alias

Guacho

, who was killed in December of that same year.

The arrival of Camargo to the Prosecutor's Office seems to close a process full of tension between the national government and the Court.

President Petro was in favor of the new prosecutor being elected before last February 12, when Barbosa was completing his four-year term.

The Constitution orders the president to select three candidates for office and subsequently notify the magistrates, on whom the final decision rests.

The president prepared a first shortlist in August and modified it with the inclusion of Camargo on September 25, with enough notice for the magistrates to study the profiles of the chosen lawyers, interview them and, in general, complete the required procedure before the departure from Barbosa.

Accompanying Camargo in her nomination were Ángela María Buitrago and Amelia Pérez, who resigned minutes before the decisive vote.

Never before had the shortlist been made up only of women.

As February 12 approached, uncertainty increased about how long it would take the Court to choose the new prosecutor.

Before that date, the Plenary Chamber had met twice without being able to reach an agreement;

the blank vote always won.

The failed election aroused the eagerness of the Government and the left, who wanted to prevent at all costs the deputy prosecutor Martha Mancera, Barbosa's right hand, from temporarily taking the reins of the entity.

Since Petro assumed the head of state, Barbosa showed himself as the visible face of the opposition, openly reproaching his policies and calling him a “dictator”, so Mancera's provisional status was seen as an extension of that uncomfortable situation.

Thursday, February 8, was the last opportunity to choose before Barbosa handed over command to Mancera.

That day, different unions related to the Government called for marches and sit-ins in front of the facilities of the Prosecutor's Office and the Court, in Bogotá.

The objective was clear, to demand that the election not be delayed any further.

Members of the ruling party of Congress and the Cabinet spoke in the same sense.

His good intentions, however, ended up tarnished.

The day got out of control.

Two days before, at the Casa de Nariño, President Petro received Gerson Chaverra and Octavio Tejeiro, president and vice president of the Court, to guarantee them that his Administration was not interested in pressuring the election of a new prosecutor.

“A progressive government will not attack justice but will attack impunity,” the president published on his X account. His words were omitted by a small portion of his followers who attended the march.

Once the news spread that none of the shortlists had obtained the support of the majority of 16 magistrates, a group of protesters blocked the exit of the Palace of Justice, where the Supreme Court and the other courts of the Supreme Court operate. Judicial branch.

While some protested peacefully with banners and proclamations against Barbosa and Mancera, others hit the security fence that separated them from the bodyguards and police guarding the interior of the building.

The intervention of the authorities was necessary, who spread tear gas to disperse the crowd, so that the vehicles transporting the magistrates could leave without inconvenience.

The events were described as a “blockade of the Court” by public opinion and aroused the solidarity of other courts—Constitutional Court, Special Jurisdiction for Peace and Superior Council of the Judiciary—which expressed their rejection of any type of intimidation of Power. Judicial.

That hostile atmosphere seemed to increase with Pérez's resignation from the shortlist this Tuesday, but it soon dissipated with the announcement that Luz Adriana Camargo will lead the Prosecutor's Office.

Her election is the story of a comeback.

In the vote on February 22, Amelia Pérez was the one who had come closest to obtaining the 16 votes required to be sworn in as prosecutor.

Then, in the March 7 session and after a series of publications in X by Pérez's husband affected her candidacy, Camargo surpassed her and took the lead from her.

With 18 votes, she was well above Buitrago, who had two supports, and the resigned Pérez, who added one.

The task facing the new attorney general is not easy.

Although it was appointed by the president, the Prosecutor's Office is independent of the Executive.

An autonomy that will be put to the test, since the institution recently accused Nicolás, the eldest son of the president, of money laundering and illicit enrichment.

In parallel is the process against former right-wing president Álvaro Uribe for witness tampering.

His predecessor Barbosa failed three times in her attempt to convince the justice system to dismiss the case.

All this in parallel with tens of thousands of criminal news stories that are presented every year.

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