Colombia: Will the rule of law be preserved?

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 29/07/2025

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I must begin by stating, for the sake of transparency, that I have no ties to Alvaro Uribe, whether professional or friendly. During his presidency, I found his style to be as imposing and dry as that of a boarding school principal. I also found him efficient.

But it certainly would never have occurred to me to think he's someone willing to trample the rule of law by manipulating witnesses. Not only does this not make sense given the character's behavior, but it's clearly a fallacy, the product of a very well-thought-out and even better-executed setup. Because if Mr. Uribe were someone capable of manipulating a witness, as Judge Sandra Heredia claims, he would know how to effectively manipulate the judicial process against him. What's more, he wouldn't submit to a process that would affect his image and dignity as a statesman. Judge Hidalgo also stated that justice does not bow to power. And one wonders, which power is she referring to? Because Mr. Uribe has submitted to the judicial process opened against him like any other citizen, thus demonstrating his democratic spirit. Furthermore, he ignored the numerous invitations from foreign universities and research institutions to leave Colombia to begin a sort of warrior's rest, sharing his experiences as head of state with the new generations of future Latin American leaders who attend or were attending university classrooms in the United States.

Furthermore, Mr. Uribe was not intimidated by the obvious bias of a group of judges who ignored the prosecutor's recommendations to dismiss the case due to a lack of evidence to support the charges. And that was at the time of taking the plunge and residing outside of Colombia, because by ignoring the prosecutor's recommendations, that group of judges evidently had some agenda beyond the rule of law.

The decision clearly has short legal grounds. Because the Colombian Attorney General's Office is the entity charged with substantiating the charges, and if the Attorney General's Office, after a decade of investigations, has not found evidence to substantiate the charges, it is clearly because no such evidence exists, and therefore Mr. Uribe cannot be tried for something he did not commit.

This leads us to wonder why this event is happening at this time and in this way.

The answer is relatively simple. We are on the eve of the presidential elections in Colombia, and the current occupant of the Nariño Palace would like to install as his successor someone who shares his worldview, if he has one. And after a turbulent—not to say disastrous—terms in which Colombia has seen its rating as an investment destination disappear; healthcare providers collapse; and cocaine cultivation increase to 300,000 hectares, the chances of someone from his ideological and political camp occupying the Nariño seat do not look promising. It's like in schools when an unruly child makes a mistake that is rejected by his classmates, and he resorts to accusing the entire group of transgressions. In the case of Colombia, an attempt is being made to put obstacles in the way of the political group created by Alvaro Uribe so that his party will disband and be unable to win another election. The goal is to clear the way for the weakening of the leader of the democratic center to lead to the fragmentation of the opposition, so that victory can be declared for President Petro's supporters.

The strategy may work for President Petro and his followers, but it will destroy the most important asset Colombia has cultivated throughout its republican history: the population's commitment to the rule of law. And this has earned Colombia investment recommendation ratings uncommon in the rest of Latin America; it has also earned it membership in the OECD; and it has also developed democratic institutions with a more republican character than many of its neighbors, including Venezuela, which was a showcase for democracy for forty years. Hopefully, in this and all cases, the criterion of observance of the law, which is the essence of any democracy, will ultimately prevail.

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