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By Establishing Rules On Traffic Police And Road Transport And Control Groups Territorial Entities Are Unified And Other Provisions

Original Language Title: Mediante la cual se unifican normas sobre agentes de tránsito y transporte y grupos de control vial de las entidades territoriales y se dictan otras disposiciones

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1310 OF 2009

(June 26)

Official Journal No. 47,392 of 26 June 2009

CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC

By which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated.

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COLOMBIA CONGRESS

DECRETA:

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

ARTICLE 1o. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE APPLICATION. The rules contained in this law shall apply to transit and transport agencies and to the transit and transport agents of the territorial area.

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ARTICLE 2o. DEFINITION. For the application and interpretation of this law, the following definitions shall be taken into account:

Transit and Transportation Organizations: They are public entities of the municipal, district or departmental order that have the function of organizing, directing, and controlling transit and transportation in their respective jurisdiction.

Transit and Transportation Authority: Any public entity or public employee who is accredited pursuant to Article 3or Law 769 of 2002.

Transit and Transportation Agent: Every public employee invested with authority to regulate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, monitor, control and intervene in the enforcement of transit and transportation rules in each of the territorial entities.

Vial Control Group or Transit Agents Corps: Group of public employees with authority as transit and transportation agents legally bound and regulated to transit and transportation agencies.

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ARTICLE 3o. PROFESSIONALISM. The activity of Agent of Transit and Transportation is a profession and as such they must receive an integral academic formation according to their rank that allows a professional, cultural and social promotion, with an accent in the ethical, moral, physical, ecological, leadership and community service.

For the purposes of technical training in the field, required to perform as a transit and transportation authority, transit agencies with jurisdiction in department capitals may create non-formal schools in charge of such academic training, complying with the pensum regulated by the Ministry of Transportation or in their absence for this training or the technology will be contracted with recognized Public Universities.

PARAGRAFO 1o. The Ministry of Transport, within six (6) months following the publication of this law, will set the parameters for updating the training, induction, training and technical training pensum to be a transit agent.

PARAGRAFO 2o. The transit and transport agencies must organize at least one (1) course of updating in transit and transport rules and procedures, road safety and judicial police, human, ethical and moral relations addressed to all their employees and imparted by persons or entities suitable in the field.

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ARTICLE 4. JURISDICTION. Without prejudice to the collaboration that the various transit authorities must provide, each of them will perform their functions in the territory of their jurisdiction, as follows: The National Police Highway Police on the national highways; the traffic agents of the departmental agencies in those municipalities where there are no transit agencies; the municipal or district transit agents in the urban and rural perimeter of their municipalities.

Each transit agency will have a single specialized body of transit and transportation agents, who will act only in their respective jurisdiction (or under agreements with other municipalities), which by their rank of authority and have judicial police functions will not be able to be the object of delegation or hire with individuals.

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ARTICLE 5o. GENERAL FUNCTIONS. The bodies of agents of transit and transport of the Territorial Entities are established to ensure compliance with the rules of transit and transport and to guarantee the free movement of all citizens and to exercise on a permanent basis the functions of:

1. Judicial Police. Regarding the punishable facts of the traffic authorities ' jurisdiction according to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the National Transit Code.

2. Educational. Through guiding, training and creating culture in the community regarding transit and transportation rules.

3. Preventive. From the commission of infractions or violations, regulating the vehicular and pedestrian circulation, monitoring, controlling and intervening in the fulfillment of the technical, missionary and legal procedures of the transit rules.

4. Solidarity. Among the bodies of transit and transport agents, the community and other authorities.

5. Civic surveillance. For the protection of natural resources related to the quality of the environment and ecology, in the urban and rural areas contained in the current environmental and transit and transport standards.

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CHAPTER II.

OF THE HIERARCHY, CREATION, AND REVENUE.

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ARTICLE 6o. HIERARCHY. It is the internal organization of the road control group that determines the command in ascending or descending form. The hierarchy within these bodies for the purposes of their organization, hierarchical level of employment in administrative career, denomination of employment, the same as for all the obligations and rights enshrined in this law, will be determined in this article.

The profession of transit agent for performing functions that require the development of processes and procedures in mission and support technical tasks, as well as those related to the application of science and technology as a judicial police officer, will belong in administrative career to the technical level and will comprise the following degrees in descending scale:

CODE NAMING LEVEL
290 Traffic Commander Professional
338 Transit Subcomandante Technician
339 Transit Operational Technician Technician
340 Transit Agents Technician

PARAGRAFO. Not all Territorial Entities will necessarily have all of the Codes and denominations these will be determined by the needs of the service.

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ARTICLE 7o. CREATION AND INCOME REQUIREMENTS. To enter the bodies of transit and transport agents of the territorial entities is required, in addition:

1. Be Colombian with a defined military situation.

2. Own driving licence of second (2nd) and fourth (4th) category at minimum.

3. Not having been convicted at any time by court sentence, custodial sentence, except for culpous political crimes.

4. Being older.

5. Take up and approve the training programme (training chair and minimum intensity established by the competent authority).

6. Hold a bachelor's degree, certificate or record of processing.

PARAGRAFO. For the creation of the posts of agents of transit and transportation of the territorial entities, it will be necessary to evaluate the convenience and opportunity according to the number of inhabitants and the number of vehicles that transit in the municipality.

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ARTICLE 8o. amend point 1o of Article 4or Law 769 of 2002, which will be as follows:

The Directors of the Transit Agencies or Transit Secretariats of the territorial entities must credit related professional training and experience in the field of two (2) years or in their absence studies of graduate or graduate in the field.

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CHAPTER III.

MORALIZATION AND SYSTEM OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION.

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ARTICLE 9o. MORALIZATION. The bodies of transit agents are responsible for their moralization, therefore they will create courts or ethics committees, which will issue concepts about the performance, behavior, behavior of their components, which must be attended by the heads of the transit agencies.

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ARTICLE 10. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION SYSTEM. The bodies of agents of transit and transportation of the Territorial Entities will develop a system of citizen participation, in order to strengthen the relations between the citizen and the institution, establishing effective mechanisms to express and be attended to different sectoral and regional interests, which are in the service of the transit agents.

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ARTICLE 11. COMMITTEE ON TRANSIT AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION. Create the Committee on Transit and Citizen Participation, as a mechanism of the highest level, charged with guiding and supervising the relations between the citizenry, the traffic agents of the Territorial Entities and the administrative authorities. The purpose of this committee is to meet the needs of different social groups, in relation to the issues of transit and transport, and to issue recommendations on the set of procedural and behavioural rules governing the services of the institution.

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ARTICLE 12. COMPOSITION. The Commission on Transit of Territorial Entities and Citizen Participation, will be integrated by:

1. The Mayor or Governor, at each territorial level or its delegate.

2. A member of the Territorial Planning Council.

3. A delegate from the Transit and Transportation Employees Union.

4. A representative of the Community Action Boards.

5. A representative of the Transport Companies.

6. A representative of the Transit Agents.

7. A delegate of the Municipal Council or Departmental Assembly, according to the territorial entity to which the transit agency is attached.

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ARTICLE 13. FUNTIONS. These are the basic functions of the Commission on Territorial Transit and Citizen Participation:

1. Propose initiatives to strengthen the preventive action of the public officials of the transit agencies of territorial entities of transit, in front of the society, as well as to prevent the commission of faults, crimes and omissions.

2. Propose initiatives and mechanisms aimed at determining in priority an ethical, civil, democratic, educational and social orientation in the community-transit relationship and other public servants.

3. Promote citizen participation in traffic and transportation issues, at departmental and municipal levels.

4. Recommend the design of mechanisms, projects, planning, prevention, safety and road control programs to ensure the commitment of the community-transit agents and state entities with the support and participation of the Road Prevention Fund.

5. Recommend development, health, housing, education and welfare programs for officials of transit agencies in the territorial entities.

6. Recommend the extension of the road control groups in each territorial entity.

7. The other that the Territorial Authorities assign to them in relation to the transit and transport of the locality.

PARAGRAFO. The Territorial Transit and Citizen Participation Commission shall be convened every three months by the Director or Secretary of Territorial Transit.

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CHAPTER IV.

UNIFORMS, USAGE, AND FINAL PROVISIONS.

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ARTICLE 14. UNIFORM AND USE. The National Government shall issue the relevant regulations to define the aspects related to the use of uniforms, designs and other aspects that permit the identification of transit agents in the territorial entities.

These active-duty employees will have the right to be provided free of charge by the respective entity, three (3) full-uniform annual envelopes, badges, flags and equipment in accordance with the regulations issued by each territorial entity. This benefit is not a salary, nor will it be computed as a factor in any case.

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ARTICLE 15. FINAL PROVISIONS. The National Government within the ninety (90) days from the entry into force of this law, shall issue the regulations permitting the implementation of this law.

TRANSIENT PARAGRAPH. The National Civil Service Commission will be able to make the necessary modifications to Convocation 001 of 2005 based on this law.

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ARTICLE 16. This law governs from the date of its promulgation and repeals the provisions that are contrary to it.

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The President of the honorable Senate of the Republic,

HERNAN ANDRADE SERRANO.

The Secretary General of the honorable Senate of the Republic,

EMILIO RAMON OTERO DAJUD.

The President of the honorable House of Representatives,

GERMAN MALE COTRINO.

The Secretary General of the honorable House of Representatives,

JESUS ALFONSO RODRIGUEZ CAMARGO.

COLOMBIA-NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Publish and comply.

Dada en Bogotá, D. C., as at 26 June 2009.

ALVARO URIBE VELEZ

The Minister of Transport,

ANDRES URIEL GALLEGO HENAO.

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

2009 C-306 NUMBER STATEMENT

Reference: Expedient OP-112

Presidential Objections to Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 House, by which rules on transit and transportation agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated.

Magistrate Rapporteur: Juan Carlos Henao Pérez

Bogotá, D. C., twenty-nine (29) of April two thousand nine (2009).

The Full Board of the Constitutional Court exercising its constitutional and legal powers, in particular those provided for in Articles 167 and 241 numeral 8 of the Political Constitution, and completed all the formalities and requirements referred to in Decree 2067 of 1991, propose the following

STATEMENT

I. BACKGROUND

Through its own initiative received by the General Secretariat of this Corporation on 24 November 2008, the President of the Senate of the Republic referred to the Bill of Law No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Camara, "by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", objected by the National Government for reasons of unconstitutionality, so that, in accordance with the provisions of the articles 167 of the Constitution and 32 of Decree 2067 of 1991, the Court has ruled on its exilibility.

Request for evidence on legislative processing compliance

1. By Order of November 28, 2008, the Magistrate Rapporteur focused on the knowledge of the process and asked the Secretaries-General of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives to send several tests on the legislative procedure followed by both the approval of Bill 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Camara, "by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", as for the approval of the Report on the objections of the National Government to the same bill.

2. With the Auto 389 of three (3) December of two thousand eight (2008), the Plena Room decided to abstain from deciding on the presidential objections of the reference "as long as the constitutional and legal budgets are not met to do so" and decided to press the Secretaries-General of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives to collect all the documents required. " Consequently, it was decided in the order that the process of proceeding would continue "once the Judge Substantiator verifies that the previous evidence has been adequately provided ...".

3. By cars of 11 December 2008 and 10 February 2009, the Secretaries-General of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives were asked to give the Court different documents on the legislative process of the project.

4. By order of February 11, 2009, the Secretary General of the Senate of the Republic was asked to send different documents.

5. By means of different dates, the Secretaries-General of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives sent the requested documents to the Constitutional Court, which is why it was decided to go ahead with the process by means of Auto on April 13, 2009.

Description of the legislative process of the bill

The legislative process of the project was as follows:

-Parliamentary initiative and procedure in the House of Representatives

-- On August 16, 2006, the Representatives Pedro Jimenez Salazar, Jorge Humberto Mantilla Serrano, Jose Manuel Herrera Cely, Berner Leon Zambrano Erazo, Jaime de Jesus Restrepo, José Gerardo Piamba, Myrian Paredes, Luis Jairo Ibarra, and Diego Alberto Naranjo Escobar were based before the General Secretariat of the House of Representatives on Bill 077 of 2006, House, " by which rules on transit and transportation agents and traffic control groups of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated according to the law. Article 150, number 25 of the National Constitution and judgments of Constitutional Court C-530/03 and C577/09 of July 25, 2006. " The project and the corresponding explanatory statement were published in the Congress Gazette 298, 2006, pp. 610.

-- The report for the first debate of Bill 077 of 2006 House and the amendments, presented by the Representatives José Manuel Herrera Cely, Berner Leon Zambrano Erazo and Alberto Gordon May, was published in the Congress Gazette 503 of 2006, pp. 5-9.

-- House Bill 077, 2006, was announced to be voted on in the 6th Permanent Constitutional Committee of the House of Representatives on November 1, 2006, as stated in the Act No. 14 of 2006, published in the Congress Gazette 605 of 2006, p. 5.

-- Bill 077 of 2006 was considered and approved by the Sixth Permanent Constitutional Committee of the House of Representatives on November 7, 2006, as stated in the Commission Act No. 15, published in the Congress Gazette 606, 2006, p. 7-10. According to the certification of the Secretary-General of the Sixth House Committee, the bill was passed "with a quorum and a unanimous vote of fourteen (14) votes." (C5, p. 3).

-- The text approved in the first debate and the report for the second debate in the House of Representatives, presented by the Representatives José Manuel Herrera Cely, Alberto Gordon May, Ciro Antonio Rodríguez P. and Berner Leon Zambrano, were published in the Congress Gazette number 499, 2007, fls. 12-15.

-- The plenary session of October 30, 2007, announced the consideration and vote of the paper for the second debate, as stated in the Plenary Session Minutes number 078 of that day, published in the Congress Gazette 614 of 2007, p. 27.

-- On November 6, 2007, the Plenary of the House of Representatives considered and approved the proposal with which the report for the second debate ended, with the proposed modifications and articles, as stated in the 079 Plenary Session of that day, published in the Congress Gazette 601 of 2007, p. 22. The Secretary General of the House certifies that the bill was considered and approved and that 159 representatives were present at the session (2, fl. 3).

-- The approved text of the bill in the House of Representatives Plenary was published in the Congress Gazette 577 of 2007, pp. 2-3.

-Processing in the Senate of the Republic

-- The file of Bill 077 of 2006 House was referred to the Senate of the Republic and numbered as Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate-077 of 2006 House. Senator Alexander Lopez Maya was appointed as rapporteur.

-- The report for the first debate in the Sixth Permanent Constitutional Commission of the Senate of the Republic was published in the Congress Gazette number 627 of December 4, 2007, fls. 12-15.

-- On March 31, 2008, the Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga Escobar, sent to the President of the Sixth Senate Committee of the Republic a letter in which he expresses that it is the National Government that is responsible for the establishment of the loan regime of all public servants, based on the broad and general rules that the Congress of the Republic dictates, which is why the latter could not create a risk premium for transit agents. In addition, it highlights the need to include in the explanatory statement or in the report of the project "the fiscal costs that it generates for the territorial entities established in Article 17 of the project, concerning the endowment of uniforms and equipment of the transit agents".

-- Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate-077 of 2006 Chamber was announced to be voted by the Sixth Permanent Constitutional Commission of the Senate of the Republic on April 1, 2008, as stated in the 2008 Act No. 20, published in the Congress Gazette 193 of 2008.

-- The first debate in the Sixth Commission of the Senate of the Republic was approved at the session on April 8, 2008, as stated in the Minutes No. 21, published in the Congress Gazette 298 of 2008, pp. 2-8.

-- The presentation for the second debate in the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic was published, along with the text approved by the Sixth Senate Committee and the text proposed for the second debate, in the Congress Gazette number 275 of May 22, 2008, fls. 17-22.

-- Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate-077 of 2006 Chamber was announced for second debate in the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic on June 4, 2008, as stated in record number 52, published in the Congress Gazette 540 of 2008, p. 16.

-- Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate-077 of 2006 House was approved on June 11, 2008 by the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic, as stated in Act No. 53, published in the Congress Gazette 560 of 2008, pp. 6, 16 and 66. According to the certification issued by the Secretary General of the Senate of the Republic, the approval " was of 92 honorable senators who, according to the minutes, appear attending the session, plus 9 senators who stopped attending, plus an accepted impediment (...), there was no request for a nominal vote or a record of negative votes. (C3, p.2)

-- The text approved in the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic was published in the Congress Gazette 505 of 2008, pp. 6-8.

-The processing of the accidental mediation commission report

-- Since there were differences between the texts approved by the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives, a Comprehensive Mediation Commission was created, which yielded its report on June 17, 2008, published in the Congress Gacts 374, pp. 10-12, and 376 of 2008, pp. 3-5.

-- The report of the Accidental Commission of Mediation was announced for a vote by the Plenary of the House of Representatives on June 17, 2008, as stated in the 2008 Act No. 118, published in the Congress Gazette 423 of 2008, p. 41.

-- The report of the Accidental Commission of Mediation was considered and approved by the Plenary of the House of Representatives on June 18, 2008, as contained in Act No. 119 of 2008, published in the Congress Gazette 424 of 2008, pp. 14-15. The Secretary General of the House of Representatives certifies that the bill "was considered and approved by a majority of those present" and that 156 representatives were present at the session (C2, fl. 3).

-- The report of the Accidental Commission of Mediation was announced for discussion and approval by the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic on June 18, 2008, as stated in the Minutes number 56, published in the Congress Gazette 563 of 2008, p. 48.

-- The conciliation report was approved by the Senate Plenary on June 19, 2008, as stated in the 57th Act, published in the Congress Gazette 564 of 2008, pp. 5 and 16-18. The Secretary General of the Senate of the Republic certifies that " the approval was of 90 honorable senators in the absence of a request for a nominal vote, nor any impediments, nor a record of negative votes. (C3, fl. 2).

-- On July 8, 2008, the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic of 31).

-Presidential objections and their processing in the Legislative Chambers

-- On July 16, 2008, the President of the Republic, the Minister of Transportation, and the Director of the Administrative Department of the Civil Service sent the President of the House of Representatives a statement of objections from the National Government to the bill, for reasons of unconstitutionality and inconvenience, which was published in the Congress Gazette 426 of 2008, pp. 21-23.

-- Senator Alexander Lopez Maya and the Representatives of the House of Representatives Jorge Enrique Gomez Celis and Carlos Alberto Zuluaga Diaz were appointed to report on the presidential objections to Bill 077 of 2006, House of 190, 2007 Senate.

-- The MPs ' report on presidential objections was presented to the Presidents of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives and published in the Congress Gacetas 714 and 716 of 2008, pp. 21-24 and 11-15, respectively.

-- The report on presidential objections was announced for a vote by the House of Representatives on October 16, 2008, as contained in Act No. 142, published in the Congress Gazette 897 of 2008, p. 57.

-- The report on presidential objections was approved by the House of Representatives Plenary in the session of October 20, 2008, as stated in the Act No. 143 of 2008, published in the Congress Gazette number 964, 2008, p.18. According to the certification annexed by the Secretary General of the House of Representatives, one hundred and fifty-seven (157) representatives were present in the session and the report was considered and approved "by the majority of those present, in ordinary voting." (C. 2, p. 4).

-- The report on presidential objections was announced for a vote by the Senate of the Republic on October 21, 2008, as stated in the 2008 Act No. 19, published in the Congress Gazette 28 of 2009, p.30.

-- The report on presidential objections was approved by the Senate of the Republic on October 28, 2008, as stated in the Act No. 20, published in the Congress Gazette 29, 2009, pp. 4 and 33-35. According to the certification issued by the Secretary General of the Senate of the Republic, the report was approved "unanimously by 96 honorable senators who appear attending the plenary where there was no request for a roll call, no proof of negative votes, no withdrawal of seats ...". (C11, p.1)

-- On November 13, 2008, the President of the Senate of the Republic referred to the Constitutional Court, the file of the bill, for this Corporation to decide on the objections of the Congress of the Republic about the constitutionality of the bill. The office of the Senate of the Republic was established in this Corporation on 24 November 2008.

II. TEXT OF THE OBJECTIONABLE RULES

The Court then transcribes the final text of Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006, House, "by which rules on transit and transportation agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", approved by Congress and objected to by the National Government.

" BILL NUMBER 077 OF 2006 CHAMBER, 190 OF 2007 SENATE

by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated.

" The Congress of Colombia

" DECRETA:

" CHAPTER I

" General Provisions

" Article 1o. Scope. The rules contained in this law shall apply to transit and transport agencies and to the transit and transport agents of the territorial area.

" Article 2o. Definition. For the application and interpretation of this law, the following definitions shall be taken into account:

" Transit and Transportation Organizations: Public entities of the municipal, district or departmental order that have the function of organizing, directing, and controlling transit and transportation in their respective jurisdiction.

" Transit and Transportation Authority: Any public entity or public employee who is accredited pursuant to Article 3or Law 769 of 2002.

" Transit and Transportation Agent: Every public employee invested with authority to regulate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, monitor, control and intervene in the enforcement of transit and transportation rules in each of the territorial entities.

" Vial Control Group or Transit Agents Corps: Group of public employees with authority as transit and transportation agents legally bound and regulated to transit and transportation agencies.

" Article 3o. Professionalism. The activity of Agent of Transit and Transportation is a profession and as such they must receive an integral academic formation according to their rank that allows a professional, cultural and social promotion, with an accent in the ethical, moral, physical, ecological, leadership and community service.

" For the purposes of technical training in the field, required to perform as a transit and transportation authority, transit agencies with jurisdiction in department capitals may create non-formal schools in charge of such academic training, complying with the pensum regulated by the Ministry of Transportation or in their absence for this training or the technology will be contracted with recognized Public Universities.

" Paragraph it. The Ministry of Transport, within six months of the publication of this law, will set the parameters for updating the training, induction, training and technical training pensum to be a transit agent.

" Paragraph 2o. The transit and transport agencies must organize at least one (1) course of updating in transit and transport rules and procedures, road safety and judicial police, human, ethical and moral relations addressed to all their employees and imparted by persons or entities suitable in the field.

" Article 4o. Jurisdiction. Without prejudice to the collaboration that the various transit authorities must provide, each of them will perform their functions in the territory of their jurisdiction, as follows: The National Police Highway Police on the national highways; the traffic agents of the departmental agencies in those municipalities where there are no transit agencies; the municipal or district transit agents in the urban and rural perimeter of their municipalities.

" Each transit agency will have a single specialized body of transit and transportation agents, who will act only in their respective jurisdiction (or under agreements with other municipalities), which by their rank of authority and have judicial police functions will not be able to be the object of delegation or hire with individuals.

" Article 5o. General functions. The bodies of agents of transit and transport of the Territorial Entities are established to ensure compliance with the rules of transit and transport and to guarantee the free movement of all citizens and to exercise on a permanent basis the functions of:

" 1. Judicial Police. With respect to the punishable facts of jurisdiction of the transit authorities according to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the National Transit Code.

" 2. Educational. By guiding, training and creating culture in the community with respect to the rules of transit and transport.

" 3. Preventive. From the commission of infractions or violations, regulating the vehicular and pedestrian circulation, monitoring, controlling and intervening in the fulfillment of the technical, missionary and legal procedures of the transit rules.

" 4. Solidarity. Among the bodies of transit and transport agents, the community and other authorities.

" 5. Civic surveillance. Protection of natural resources related to the quality of the environment and ecology, in the urban and rural areas contained in the current environmental and transit and transport standards.

" CHAPTER II

" From hierarchy, creation, and revenue

" Article 6o. Hierarchy. It is the internal organization of the road control group that determines the command in ascending or descending form. The hierarchy within these bodies for the purposes of their organization, hierarchical level of employment in administrative career, denomination of employment, the same as for all the obligations and rights enshrined in this law, will be determined in this article.

" The profession of a transit agent for performing functions that require the development of processes and procedures in mission and support technical tasks, as well as those related to the application of science and technology as a judicial police officer, will belong in administrative career to the technical level and will comprise the following degrees in descending scale:

" CODE DENOMINATION LEVEL
" 290 Transit Commander Professional
" 338 Transit Subcomandante Technician
" 339 Transit Operational Technician Technician
" 340 Transit Agents Technician

" Paragraph. Not all Territorial Entities will necessarily have all of the Codes and denominations, these will be determined by the needs of the service.

" Article 7o. Creation and income requirements. To enter the bodies of transit and transport agents of the territorial entities is required, in addition:

" 1. Be Colombian with a defined military situation.

" 2. Own driving licence of second (2nd) and fourth (4th) category at minimum.

" 3. Not having been convicted at any time by court sentence, custodial sentence, except for culpous political crimes.

" 4. Being older.

" 5. Take up and approve the training programme (training chair and minimum intensity established by the competent authority).

" 6. Hold a bachelor's degree, certificate or record of processing.

" Paragraph. For the creation of the posts of agents of transit and transportation of the territorial entities, it will be necessary to evaluate the convenience and opportunity according to the number of inhabitants and the number of vehicles that transit in the municipality.

" Article 8o. Amend point 1o of Article 4or Law 769 of 2002, which will be as follows:

" The Directors of the Transit Agencies or Transit Secretariats of the territorial entities shall provide proof of related professional training and experience in the field of two (2) years or in their absence studies of diploma or post-graduate in the field.

" CHAPTER III

" Moralization and Citizen Participation System

" Article 9o. Moralization. The bodies of traffic agents are responsible for their moralization, therefore they will create Courts or Committees of Ethics, which will issue concepts about the performance, behavior, behavior of their components, that will have to be attended by the heads of the traffic dependencies.

" Article 10. System of citizen participation. The bodies of agents of transit and transportation of the Territorial Entities will develop a system of citizen participation, in order to strengthen the relations between the citizen and the institution, establishing effective mechanisms to express and be attended to different sectoral and regional interests, which are in the service of the transit agents.

" Article 11. Committee on Transit and Citizen Participation. Create the Committee on Transit and Citizen Participation, as a mechanism of the highest level, charged with guiding and supervising the relations between the citizenry, the traffic agents of the Territorial Entities and the administrative authorities. The purpose of this committee is to meet the needs of different social groups, in relation to the issues of transit and transport, and to issue recommendations on the set of procedural and behavioural rules governing the services of the institution.

" Article 12. Composition. The Transit Commission of the Territorial Entities and Citizen Participation, will be integrated by:

" 1. The Mayor or Governor, at each territorial level or its delegate.

" 2. A member of the Territorial Planning Council.

" 3. A delegate from the Transit and Transportation Employees Union.

" 4. A representative of the Community Action Boards.

" 5. A representative of the Transport Companies.

" 6. A representative of the Transit Agents.

" 7. A delegate of the Municipal Council or Departmental Assembly, according to the territorial entity to which the transit agency is attached.

" Article 13. Functions. These are the basic functions of the Commission on Territorial Transit and Citizen Participation:

" 1. Propose initiatives to strengthen the preventive action of the public officials of the transit agencies of territorial entities of transit, in front of the society, as well as to prevent the commission of faults, crimes and omissions.

" 2. Propose initiatives and mechanisms aimed at determining in priority an ethical, civil, democratic, educational and social orientation in the community-transit relationship and other public servants.

" 3. Promote citizen participation in traffic and transportation issues, at departmental and municipal levels.

" 4. Recommend the design of mechanisms, projects, planning, prevention, safety and road control programs to ensure the commitment of the community-transit agents and state entities with the support and participation of the Road Prevention Fund.

" 5. Recommend development, health, housing, education and welfare programs for officials of transit agencies in the territorial entities.

" 6. Recommend the extension of the road control groups in each territorial entity.

" 7. The other that the Territorial Authorities assign to them in relation to the transit and transport of the locality.

" Paragraph. The Territorial Transit and Citizen Participation Commission shall be convened every three months by the Director or Secretary of Territorial Transit.

" CHAPTER IV

" Uniforms, usage, and final provisions

" Article 14. Uniform and use. The National Government shall issue the relevant regulations to define the aspects related to the use of uniforms, designs and other aspects that permit the identification of transit agents in the territorial entities.

" These active-duty employees shall have the right to be provided free of charge by the respective entity, three (3) full-uniform annual envelopes, badges, flags and equipment in accordance with the regulations issued by each territorial entity. This benefit is not a salary, nor will it be computed as a factor in any case.

" Article 15. Final provisions. The National Government, within 90 days of the entry into force of this law, shall issue the regulations permitting the implementation of this law.

" Transitional paragraph. The National Civil Service Commission will be able to make the necessary modifications to Convocation 001 of 2005 based on this law.

" Article 16. This law governs from the date of its promulgation and repeals the provisions that are contrary to it. "

III. OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

Through the President of the Republic, the Minister of Transportation, and the Director of the Administrative Department of the Civil Service, the National Government objected to the bill for reasons of unconstitutionality and inconvenience. The Court will then resend the objections of unconstitutionality.

In the letter it is stated that the bill violates both articles 151 of the Political Constitution, which provides that the legislative activity will be carried out in accordance with the respective organic laws, and articles 300-7 and 313-6, which indicate the competencies of the departmental assemblies and municipal councils, respectively.

In relation to the allegation about the violation of article 151 they state that article 142 of the same Constitution preceptua that the law will determine the number of Permanent Commissions of the Legislative Chambers, as well as the matters of which each one of them must be addressed. In this sense, they express that the Law 3of 1992 established what these commissions and their powers were, and that the judgment C-648 of 1997 provided that "the violation of the provisions of Law 3of 1992 carries an insubsainable vice of unconstitutionality to counteract the constitutional mandate contained in the article 151 Superior ...".

They noted that the project objected to the transit agents, but that this does not mean that their issue is that of transportation. They mention that from the background of the project it is clear that their objective is to "point out the location, denomination, requirements among other of the transit agents within the administrative structure in the territorial entities". In this regard they assure:

" In effect, from its initial denomination, 'by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated in accordance with article 150 number 25 of the National Constitution and Judgment of the Constitutional Court C-530 of 2003 and C-577 of 27 July 2006', it is colige that the object of this is to unify the rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities, taking into account the pronouncements of the Constitution in which it refers among other aspects to the regulatory powers of the government, its scope and the constitutional competence granted to the legislator to determine the quality regime of the municipal employees. In the same sense, the explanatory statement of the bill states that the purpose of the bill is to define the qualities and requirements that officials must demonstrate in order to exercise an administrative or free appointment and removal career, since that definition has legal reserve in accordance with the Court's pronouncements ... ".

On the basis of the above, they state that, since the project seeks to unify rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of the territorial entities, it is directly related to the structure and organization of the central administration and, consequently, these are matters that fall within the competence of the First Commission. In this way, they conclude that the bill " has vices of unconstitutionality for violating article 151 of the Political Constitution, since it was dealt with and approved in the first debate in a Permanent Commission that had no competence to know about the issues that were the subject of the bill.

Moreover, they express that articles 1o and 2o of the project violate articles 300-7 and 313-6. On this point, they state that, according to article 150-7 of the Charter, "the competence of the legislator to determine the organic structure of public entities is materially restricted to the national administration, which implies that such attribution is not predicable in any case of the territorial administration, which finds for such purposes assigned such attribution to the assemblies and to the councils".

Exposes then:

" With the wording of Article 2o of the bill, it would be necessary to impose on assemblies and councils, which do not have it foreseen, the obligation to create public entities to fulfill the function of organizing, directing and controlling the transit and transportation in their respective jurisdiction, that is, determining in the respective departmental and municipal structure the existence of a certain form of entity to direct and control the transit and transportation, when, at present, in most territorial entities, these functions are fulfilled by the The respective Transit Secretariats.

" In sum, this provision of the bill denotes an undue interference by the Congress of the Republic in determining the organizational structure of the departmental and municipal administration, which involves, on the one hand, the removal of the functions of the legislator and, on the other, the usurpation of the constitutional powers assigned to the Assemblies and Councils.

"The previous objection is predicable by extension to Article 1 of the bill, as it states that 'the rules contained in this law shall apply to transit agencies and transit and transportation agents in their respective jurisdiction', making it alien to the coverage of the bill to territorial entities that do not have such activity organized through public entities and do not allow them to organize them in the form provided by the legislator."

IV. THE INSISTENCE OF THE REPUBLIC CONGRESS

Congress of the Republic did not accept the objections presented by the National Government and decided to refer the text of the approved bill to the Constitutional Court.

In the report that was approved by the two Legislative Chambers, signed by Senator Alexander Lopez Maya, and by the House of Representatives Jorge Enrique Gomez Celis and Carlos Alberto Zuluaga Diaz, it is stated:

-That it is not true that the proposed bill "has been studied in the first debate by an incompetent Commission."

-That it is also not true that the bill "flagrantly violates the unity of matter, because it articulates each other, for referring to the transit and transportation agents, regulating their activity, professionalization, behavior, requirements, income, moralization, uniforms."

passage omitted] [passage omitted] (el Salvador, in Spanish) -- That the subject that the bill regulates is " a reserve of law, that is, that the Constitution authorized by the Political Constitution to issue rules governing professions or trades is precisely the Congress of the Republic, an inselectable legislative function that cannot be attributed to the executive branch.

To answer the objection that the project was dealt with and approved in the first debate by a committee that was not competent, the report cites a concept drawn up by the Council of State's Office of Consultation and Civil Service (C. P. Javier Henao Hidron). In the concept it is expressed that "the same Law 3of 1992 establishes that in order to resolve conflicts of competence between the standing committees, the principle of specialty will be the first, and moreover that when the matter of which the bill is concerned is not clearly attached to a commission, the president of the respective Chamber will send it to that which, according to its criterion, is competent to know of related matters".

On the basis of this, the authors of the report state, in footnote 3, that, in their opinion, " the legislator has given a margin of discretion for the allocation of competition when he is not taxatively described in the law, allowing the president of the respective Chamber to send him to those who are competent to know about related matters in his opinion; as was the case with the bill that was objected to by the National Government through the Ministry of Transportation.

Therefore, ensure that

" Given the discretion authorized by the legislator and in the absence of a taxative rule, the President of the House did not break the constitutional precepts by handing out and assigning to the Sixth Committee of the House of Representatives the bill ...

" The President of the House of Representatives, making use of his constitutional and legal powers, passed the bill according to his criteria, taking into account the competence of the Sixth Commission in related matters, because the draft in mention will be applicable to transit and transportation agencies and to the transit and transportation agents of the territorial scope, directed to the transit and transportation authorities that have the quality of public entities or public servants accredited under Article 3or Law 769 of 2002 (Code of Law). National of Land Transit and other provisions are dictated) and transit and transport agents, which have the quality of public servants invested with authority to regulate the vehicular and pedestrian traffic, monitor, control and intervene in the enforcement of transit and transport rules in each of the territorial entities.

"On the other hand and to review the content of Law 3of 1992 it is observed that the issues of public works and transport are the competence of the Sixth Commission and not of another as the National Government argues through the Ministry of Transport, because in our view it is precisely the Sixth Commission that is legitimized to know in first debate on the Bill number 077 of 2006, " by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions ", because in it it was regulated and developed the Law 769 of 2002, by which the National Code of Land Transit was issued and other provisions were dictated.

They also state that the project aims to unify the rules regarding transit agents, so that "even if it seems to be dealing with different issues, none are oblivious to the matter that we are dealing with ...".

In the report, reference is made to various judgments of the Constitutional Court (C-530 of 2003, C-570 of 1997, C-109 of 2002, C-1335 of 2004, C-012 of 2000) to substantiate the assertion that it constitutes a reserve of law the fixing of qualities to access municipal jobs and public charges of transit authorities, and the regulation of the administrative career. They express that the foregoing does not mean " that the law must necessarily exhaust all the matter, for one thing is that certain subject matter primarily corresponds to the legislator, under the general clause of jurisdiction, and another that is a matter that has legal reserve, by specific mandate of the Charter. In the first case, the law does not have to develop the subject integrally, but it can delimit the subject and allow its concreteness through administrative regulations. On the other hand, if it is a matter that has legal reserve, then it is exclusively for the legislator to develop it. "

On the other hand, in relation to the objection that the bill does not know the competencies of the departmental assemblies and municipal councils, they argue that this interpretation is wrong, because what is intended " is to regulate the transit agencies and not to create new ones, for this purpose we used an abstract and generic concept such as that of article 2o, known as 'definitions', referring to the fact that the 'transit agencies are public entities', without referring to public establishments, industrial and commercial enterprises of the State, or mixed-economy societies, as the objection in the written submission to our consideration argues.

(...)

" In such a way, that the imposition of the National Government through the Ministry of Transport is not intended, because it does not refer to public establishments, industrial or commercial enterprises of territorial order, nor to societies of mixed economy. The term used is that of Public Entities that obeys a generic and impersonal concept, which concerns entities in the official sector, such as ministries, departments, municipal governments, traffic directions, traffic inspections, or any other dependency to which they are assigned functions of transit. Therefore, it can be reasonably inferred that the draft law does not usurp the constitutional powers assigned to the assemblies and the councils.

V. THE CONCEPT OF THE NATION ' S ATTORNEY GENERAL

By Concept number 4669, received by this Corporation the day of December 2008, the Attorney General of the Nation concludes that the objections presented by the National Government are unfounded, against Bill 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Chamber, "by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated". Therefore, it asks the Court to declare its exilibility.

The Prosecutor's Office representative points out that the article 2or the Law 3ª of 1992 regulates the Permanent Commissions of the Congress and that in it the Senate and the Senate are assigned the matters of their competence, among which is the one of "public works and transport". It notes that despite the thematic distribution of competences, which is carried out by the aforementioned article 2or the Law 3ª of 1992, there are cases in which conflict arises about which is the competent committee, either "when the subject of a bill does not appear assigned to a particular permanent commission, or when in the draft law matters are regulated that compete with several commissions".

Mentions that in order to resolve these difficulties, Article 146 of the Law 5th of 1992 states that "when a draft law to be seen on several matters will be dealt with the competent commission of the predominant matter", while the paragrafos 1o and 2o of the article 2or of the Law 3rd establish that when the matter on which the draft law does not clearly belong to a Commission " the president of the respective Chamber will send it to that which, according to his criterion, is competent to know of subjects ".

Assures that the Constitutional Court has arranged that when the President of a Chamber, in the presence of these conflicting cases, decides to send the project in question to a certain Commission, the control of constitutionality must be flexible in compliance with the democratic principle, which means that only the declaration of unconstitutionality proceeds when the allocation of competence is unreasonable and manifestly contrary to the normative contents of the article 2or the Law 3rd of 1992. Refers for the effect to 2001 C-875 and C-540 Sentences.

On the basis of the above, he believes that the President of the House of Representatives did not make an unreasonable or contrary decision to Article 2or the Law 3ª of 1992, "for without a doubt the project contains matters related to transportation, as it has, as fundamental objectives to professionalize the transit agents and to guarantee an efficient delivery of the public service of transport".

He notes that the National Government stated that, because the project pursued "pointing out the location, denomination and requirements of the transit agents within the administrative structure of the territorial entities," it was proper for the competent Commission to be the First, which is responsible for knowing the projects related to the structure and organization of the national central administration. However, it responds that, although certain articles of the project refer to transit agencies as public entities of the territorial order, in essence the project is not modifying the structure or organization of the national central administration " because it is not creating these organisms, but they are established their functions and competences. Furthermore, it is clear that the draft law, in unifying the rules on transit agents, is precisely regulating the issue of road control to achieve a more efficient transit and transport service, in accordance with Article 209 of the Charter. " Refers for the effect to the C-577 Statement of 2006.

Nor does the Director of the Ministry of Public Affairs share the objection that some articles of the bill violate the functions of the Assemblies and Concessions to regulate issues of the structure of the departmental and municipal administration. In this regard, it states that the project "does not modify the departmental or municipal structures, in which case it would be a private function of the Assemblies and the Councils, but it unifies the normativity on the road control at the territorial level, which is framed within a freedom of normative configuration of the legislator and to it must be submitted the Assemblies and the Councils". It adds that the project " sets the general parameters for the due traffic control and for the access of suitable persons to the charges related to the agencies and authorities of transit and transport of the territorial entities. In other words, the legislator does not interfere in the particular issues that are the responsibility of the territorial entities in these matters.

VI. FUNDAMENTALS AND CONSIDERATIONS

Competition

1. The Constitutional Court is competent to decide definitively on the constitutionality of the rules objected to by the National Government, as provided for in Articles 167, paragraph 4, and 241 numeral 8 of the Political Charter.

The processing of objections and parliamentary insistence

2. Article 241-8 of the Political Constitution states that the Constitutional Court has to resolve definitively "on the constitutionality of the bills that have been objected to by the government as unconstitutional." In its case-law, the Court has held that the exercise of this attribution also includes the review of the procedure set out by those objections, in respect of the constitutional and legal norms that regulate it1]. For this reason, the Court will review the aforementioned procedure before proceeding to carry out the substantive examination of the objections.

3. As indicated in the description of the legislative procedure of the bill, contained in the Chapter of the Background of this judgment, Bill 077 of 2006 House-190 of 2007 Senate, "by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", was approved by the Plenary of the House of Representatives on November 6, 2007, and by the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic on June 11, 2008. Given that the texts adopted by the two Legislative Chambers differed in their content, an Accidental Mediation Commission submitted a mediation report that was approved by the House on June 18, 2008, and by the Senate on June 19, 2008.

The text of the bill approved in the Congress of the Republic was sent to the President of the Republic for the corresponding presidential sanction. The project was received at the Presidency on 8 July 2008. The President of the Republic, the Minister of Transport, and the Director of the Administrative Department of the Civil Service returned the project, with objections of unconstitutionality and inconvenience.

In the light of Article 166 of the Constitution, the Government had up to six (6) business days to file objections to the bill, as the bill consisted of fewer than twenty articles. In this case it is noted that the objections were presented in time. As indicated, on 8 July, Tuesday, the project was established for the presidential sanction in the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic, and the presidential objections were presented on 16 July, Wednesday, indicating that they were established on the sixth working day after the project came to the Presidency. The objections were published in the Congressional Gazette 406 of 2008, pp. 21-23.

As stated in the background of this ruling, the Legislative Chambers appointed Senator Alexander Lopez Maya and the Representatives Jorge Enrique Gomez Celis and Carlos Alberto Zuluaga Diaz as rapporteurs for the study of presidential objections. The congressmen dismissed the arguments of unconstitutionality presented by the National Government and insisted on the approval of the bill.

The presidential objections report, in which presidential objections were rejected, was published in the Congress Gacetas numbers 714 and 716 of 2008. Then, on October 16, 2008, it was announced for a vote by the House of Representatives-as stated in Act No. 142 published in the Congress Gazette 897 of 2008, p. 57. The announcement was made in the following terms:

" The projects are announced for the plenary session on Tuesday 21 or for the next plenary session, in which bills and legislative acts are discussed.

Report on objections:

" (...)

"Bill 077 of 2006 House, 190 of 2007 Senate, " by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated ".

At the end of the session it was decided to "convene the House, by Monday [October 20] at two in the afternoon."

The bill was approved by the House of Representatives on October 20, 2008; as it appears in the Act No. 143 of 2008, published in the Congress Gazette number 964, 2008, p. 18. The approval of the congressmen's report on presidential objections was made in the following terms:

" Directorate of the Presidency, Dr. Odin Sánchez Montes de Oca.

" Next point of the Order of the Day.

" (...)

" Honorable House Representatives and Honorable Senators:

"Respiciously through this written report we report on the honorable task appointed by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the House of Representatives on Presidential objections to Bill 077 of 2006, House, 190 of 2007 Senate, " by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated ".

" The report makes case considerations and ends with the following

" Proposition

" For the above considerations, we propose to the Plenary of the Senate and to the Plenary of the House of Representatives to approve this report and consequently not to accept the objections presented by the National Government to the Bill by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated and the full text approved, with the respective file to the honorable Constitutional Court (...).

" Firman, Alexander López Maya, Senator of the Republic, Jorge Enrique Gomez Celis, Representative to the House, Carlos Alberto Zuluaga Diaz, Representative to the House.

" It's a presidential objections report.

" You submit the report, Mr President, to the plenary.

" Directorate of the Presidency, Dr. Odin Sánchez Montes de Oca.

" In consideration of the report read, the discussion opens, announced that it will be closed, is closed, does the report of the House of Representatives approve?

" Secretary General, Dr. Jesus Alfonso Rodriguez C., reports:

"Approved Mr. President."

According to the certification issued by the Secretary General of the House, 157 representatives participated in the session and the report on the objections was approved by the majority of those present.

For its part, in the Senate of the Republic, the report on presidential objections was announced on October 21, 2008 for its vote-as stated in the 2008 Act No. 19, published in the Congress Gazette 28 of 2009, p. 30. The announcement was made in the following terms:

" The Presidency manifests:

" (...)

" On the instructions of the Presidency and in accordance with Legislative Act No. 01 of 2003, the General Secretariat announces the projects that will be discussed and approved in the next session.

" If Mr. President, the projects to discuss and vote in the next plenary session of the Senate of the Republic are as follows:

" Projects with Object Report:

" (...)

"Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 House, " by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated ".

The project was approved by the Plenary of the Senate of the Republic on October 28, 2008, as certified in the Minutes number 20, published in the Congress Gazette 29, 2009, pp. 4 and 33-35. The approval of the congressmen's report on presidential objections was made in the following terms:

" The Presidency tells the Secretariat to continue with the next objection to the Order of the Day.

"Bill No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 House, by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated."

" The Presidency grants the use of the word to the honorable Senator Alexander Lopez Maya.

" (...)

"The Presidency opens the discussion of the report in which the objections presented by the Executive are declared unfounded and, closed its discussion, the Senate gives its approval unanimously."

According to the record issued by the Secretary General of the Senate, the report was unanimously approved by the 96 Senators who attended the session.

El Comercio] In this way, given that the two Legislative Chambers insisted that the draft law be dealt with, this bill was sent to the Constitutional Court to decide on its exilibility.

passage omitted] (El Comercio, 2 June) A Description of the Outcome Of The Process, which is being analyzed, allows us to conclude that the two conditions required for the Constitutional Court to decide on the proposed objections are met in order to resolve the dispute between the National Government and the Congress of the Republic regarding the constitutionality of the bill. Thus, on the one hand, the bill was objected by the National Government, on grounds of unconstitutionality, within the time limit set by article 166 of the Political Constitution, that is, six (6) days; and on the other, in accordance with the provisions of article 167 of the Constitution, the Congress of the Republic insisted on the sanction of the bill, after dismissing the objections of unconstitutionality presented by the National Government.

4. On the other hand, the Court considers it necessary to express itself on a concern that arises when reading the description of the legislative process of the project, referring to whether it exceeded the maximum period of study fixed in the Constitution. Article 162 of the Political Constitution provides:

" Article 162. The bills that would not have completed their procedure in a legislature and that would have received first debate in one of the chambers, will continue their course in the next one, in the State in which they are located. No project can be considered in more than two legislatures. "

The bill that is discussed here was filed on August 16, 2006, and was approved in the first debate by the Sixth Committee of the House of Representatives on November 7, 2006. As is derived from the description of the procedure, the course of the process was suspended until October 2007, that is, almost a year, until, already in the next legislature, it was announced for consideration and debate in the plenary of the Chamber and, subsequently, was approved in it. Then, the Senate plenary considered and approved the bill on June 11, 2008. Since there were discrepancies between the texts approved by both Legislative Chambers, a Balancing Commission was formed, whose conciliation report was approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic, on 18 and 19 June 2008, respectively.

The above means that the project was considered and approved in the framework of two legislatures, as required by article 162 transcribed. However, since the project was objected to by the President of the Republic, the debate on the project has extended beyond the period of the two legislatures. Therefore, the question that arises is whether the constitutional mandate contained in Article 162 of the Charter was breached in the project's process.

In this regard, it is worth saying that the Court has already referred several times to this question, in order to state that the processing of presidential objections is not included within the term of the two legislatures referred to in Article 162 of the Constitution. Thus, in Case C-068 of 2004, it was expressed on the point:

" This expression of the article 162 Superior must be understood in the sense that ' the two legislatures constitute the deadline that the Congress has for the formation of the law, so that every bill that takes up the corresponding debates within that term, by this aspect is in accordance with the constitutional mandate. It is also clear that these two legislatures do not cover the term that the president has in order to raise his objections, because otherwise the executive branch could alter or suppress the Congress the opportunity that he has to give him to rule on the objections.

5. In order to finish this apart, it is necessary to note that the effects of the res judicata of the present judgment in the analysis of constitutionality of the process of the project are limited to the aspects studied in this apart, and it does not extend to those on which no analysis has been carried out.

To be followed, this Corporation will decide on the exequability of the provisions of the project, taking into consideration the objections presented by the National Government.

The legal problems raised in presidential objections

6. On this occasion, the Court must resolve two legal problems, which were raised by the National Government in its letter of objections to the Bill of Law No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Chamber, "by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated".

The first is whether in the process of the project the article 151 of the Constitution was violated, which states that the exercise of legislative activity will be subject to the organic laws that Congress will issue. In particular, the Court must establish whether the Constitution has been violated in the process of the project, because its study was initiated in the Sextas Committees of the Congress of the Republic and not in the First ones, as the National Government considers it should have happened.

The second question to be resolved by the Court is whether articles 1o and 2o of the project violate articles 300, numeral 7, and 313, numeral 6, because those rules of the project would be imposing on the departmental assemblies and municipal councils the creation of a specific type of public entities, in order to comply with the control of transit and transportation in their jurisdiction, thereby violating the territorial autonomy to determine their organic structure.

The passage of the bill does not violate article 151 of the Constitution

7. Article 142 2) of the Constitution states that "[l] a law shall determine the number of the Permanent Commissions and that of its members, as well as the matters of which each shall be responsible." In turn, article 151 of the same Charter states that " [t] he Congress shall issue organic laws to which the exercise of legislative activity shall be subject. Through them the regulations of the Congress and each of the Chambers will be established (...) ".

Based on the constitutional mandates indicated, the Legislator issued the Law 3of 1992, "for which rules are issued on the Commissions of the Congress of Colombia and other provisions are dictated." In Article 1o it was arranged that in each of the Chambers they would function Permanent Constitutional Commissions, Legal Commissions, Accidents Commissions and other commissions. Then, in Article 2o it is established that in the two Legislative Chambers seven (7) Permanent Constitutional Commissions will operate, "responsible for giving first debate to the draft legislative or legislative acts concerning the matters of their competence"[2]. For this case it is of interest to transcribe the related ones with the First and Sixth Commissions, as well as the paragraphs of the article:

" Article 2o (text modified by article 1or Law 754 of 2002). Both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives will operate Permanent Constitutional Commissions, which are responsible for giving first debate to the legislative or legislative bills concerning the issues of their competence.

" The Permanent Constitutional Commissions in each of the Chambers will be seven (7) to know:

" Commission First.

" Composed by nineteen (19) members in the Senate and thirty-five (35) in the House of Representatives, will know of: constitutional reform; statutory laws; territorial organization; regulations of the control bodies; general rules on administrative hiring; notarization and registration; structure and organization of the national central administration; of rights, guarantees and duties; legislative branch; strategies and policies for peace; intellectual property; variation of residence of the high national powers; ethnic issues.

" (...)

" Sixth Commission.

" Composed by thirteen (13) members in the Senate and eighteen (18) members in the House of Representatives, you will know of: communications; tariffs; public calamities; public functions and delivery of public services; media; scientific and technological research; electromagnetic spectra; geostationary orbit; digital communication and computer systems; airspace; public works and transportation; tourism and tourism development; education and culture.

" (...)

"Paragraph 1o. To resolve conflicts of competition between the Commissions, the principle of the specialty will first.

"Paragraph 2o. When the subject matter of which the draft law is concerned, it is not clearly attached to a Commission, the President of the respective Chamber, will send it to that which, according to its criterion, is competent to know of related matters ". (The subjects that give rise to the controversy that are analyzed in the present process are emphasized).

8. In Case C-648 of 1997 the Court decided on a lawsuit of unconstitutionality established against several articles of Law 318 of 1996, "by which mechanisms are established for the management of the financial resources destined to the fulfillment of the commitments with the international financial organizations, the Colombian Agency of International Cooperation is created and other provisions are dictated for the promotion of international cooperation". Among the charges in the lawsuit was that the creation of the Colombian Agency for International Cooperation through the project demanded that the same be dealt with in the First Commissions and not in the Comisiones Cuartas, as had been done.

In its judgment, the Court established that "the violation of the provisions of the aforementioned article 2or of Law 3ª of 1992, carries a vice of constitutional relevance, which would give rise to the declaration of inexequibility of the irregularly dealt with legal provision." Likewise, it was stated in the providence that " the laws that have been dealt with in the first debate by a Permanent Constitutional Commission lacking the competence to deal with the matters dealt with by the respective law, are unconstitutional for violating the provisions of Article 151 of the Charter. In fact, this rule makes the exercise of legislative activity subject to the provisions of an organic law, which, in the matter of the powers of the Permanent Constitutional Commissions of the Congress of the Republic, is for the purposes of the control of constitutionality and with the warning made in the aforementioned judgment, the Law 3of 1992 ".

However, in that case, the Court declared the constitutionality of the rules charged, in relation to that charge. He noted that the law that was being analyzed referred to different issues, and that it could therefore have been known by different Permanent Constitutional Commissions. He explained that for these situations the legislator had foreseen that the President of the respective Chamber would send the bill to that committee, which, in his opinion, was the competent one. Based on the above, he said about the scope of constitutionality control in these situations:

" 8. In those cases where the subjects of a particular draft law are not clearly assigned to a specific Permanent Constitutional Commission and, therefore, the President of the respective corporation assigns its procedure to the commission that it considers relevant, respect for the democratic principle requires that the judgment made by the said official must be respected by the constitutional judge, unless that allocation of competence is manifestly unreasonable for openly contravening the provisions of the article 2or the 3th Act of 1992. Only in that event the judge of the Charter could replace the decision of the President of the Senate of the Republic or the House of Representatives, decaying the inexilibility by vices in the form of the law in question ".

9. Later, in Case C-792 of 2000, the Court declared unfounded the presidential objections raised against a bill approved by the Congress of the Republic, in which it was granted "an authorization to the taxpayers of the ' unified predial tax in the Capital District". In the objections, it was stated that the bill had been debated in the First Commissions, even though its content was strictly tax, which is why it should have been dealt with in the Tercera Commissions of the Legislative Chambers.

In the judgment, the Court stated that " the tax nature of the bill being examined is evident. From this point of view, the Government is right when it states that the Permanent Constitutional Third Committees of each Chamber had a vocation to open their initial debate, for the reason of the matter. " However, the Court noted that the end of the project was to amend Decree 1421 of 1993, "For which the special regime for the Capital District of Santafe of Bogota", especially the provisions contained in its article 155, referred to the unified predial tax in the city, is dictated. In this way, I consider that, as Decree 1421 of 1993 referred to the territorial organization, "the amendment by law of the aforementioned statute, implies that the corresponding bill must be studied first by the First Permanent Constitutional Commissions of both chambers, because thematically the matters related to territorial organization are of their own, as indicated in article 2or of the Law 3rd of 1992 ...".

The Corporation then found that the contested bill concerned matters "that are of the responsibility of both the first committees and the Permanent Constitutional Terwaxes of the Legislative Chambers." He added that this situation made it inoperative to go to the principle of specialty in order to define what was the competent committee, which is why the President of the corresponding Legislative Chamber could decide, according to his criteria, which committee should proceed to the study of the project. Thus, the Court concluded that " the assignment made by the president of the respective legislative chamber has the virtue of defining the competence of the Commission that initiates the procedure, and this decision must be taken, unless it is unreasonable. Therefore, the First Constitutional Commissions of both Chambers, by virtue of the distribution that was made to them of the project, under examination, a distribution verified in accordance with the paragraph of article 2or of the Law 3ª of 1992, were competent to give first debate to the mentioned project ".

10. Subsequently, in Case C-540 of 2001 the Court settled a lawsuit against Law 617 of 2000, "for which the Law 136 of 1994 was partially reformed, the Extraordinary Decree 1222 of 1986, added to the Organic Law of the Budget, Decree 1421 of 1993, other norms are dictated to strengthen decentralization, and norms are dictated for the rationalization of national public expenditure".

The law was demanded in its entirety. One of the charges set out by the complainant was that the law had been debated and approved in the First Permanent Commissions, and not in the Quarters, as the complainant considered it to have been done, since the Organic Law of the Budget had been added to it.

After highlighting the importance of the distribution of work among the different Permanent Commissions of the Legislative[3], the Court indicated that " on many occasions the distribution of the bills for approval in the first debate is approximate, due to the special conditions of the content of each project. Although the Law 3of 1992 makes a thematic distribution among the standing committees, the breadth and variety of the constitutional principles that must be developed by law and the dynamics and specificity of each matter require some flexibility at the moment of distributing the bills for their study, processing and approval in the first debate ". For this reason, he stated that " in the events in which the constitutionality of laws is studied whose content of the sense of belonging to two or more permanent constitutional commissions according to the material distribution of Law 3of 1992, the control of constitutionality that is exercised must be flexible (...) the Constitution and the Laws 3and 5of 1992 enshrine precepts that allow a reasonable flexibility in the designation of the Commission that approves in the first debate bills. "

Then, I express that in these cases it is necessary to inquire about the dominant issue in the project:

" When the debate of constitutionality is about the competence or incompetence of a Permanent Commission to deal with a bill, it is essential to point out what the dominant criterion that the President of the respective Chamber must apply in order to forward the bill to the competent committee.

" The Court considers that, when identifying the material nature of a draft law to refer it to the Permanent Commission, if it is generated doubt it must be resolved from the purpose of the law and not based on a quantitative or mathematical criterion. It will not necessarily be the greatest number of articles that refer to the same subject within the project, which is the main criterion for making the decision, since cases can occur in which the thematic essence of the project is extracted from some of its articles only.

" In this way, to appreciate the scope of the expression 'respective commission' of article 157 of the Political Constitution, it must be assumed in a material sense, referring to the subject and the purpose of the law, and this will be the criterion for determining the Permanent Commission to which the bill is referred for its first debate.

Based on the above, he concluded that the law was constitutional, because of the position studied, since "the purpose of the norm is not to reform the Organic Law of the Budget but to affect the issue of the territorial organization ...".

In relation to the point about which criterion the Court should use to determine whether the President of a Chamber's decision to send a bill to a Constitutional Commission constituted a procedural defect, the sentence reiterated that " in the events in which there is doubt about the Permanent Commission to which the bill is to be submitted, the vice will be generated in the process if there is a lack of a reasonable decision. (...) In any case, if it were to be admitted that the President of the House could have erred in the distribution of the bill, it was not an incomprehensible or unreasonable mistake, therefore, it is admissible that he has sent it to the First Commission for the first debate. "

In this way, the Court concluded:

" In short, the distribution of the bills in the Permanent Commissions for approval in the first debate will depend on the dominant matter in each case, allowing the same project to contain issues directly or indirectly assigned to other committees but which are related to each other. The specialty criterion used by Law 3of 1992 to point out the matters known to the Permanent Constitutional Commissions must be applied according to the specific content and purpose of each bill. In the event of a reasonable doubt, the President of the Chamber where the project has been established shall make use of the faculty enshrined in paragraph 2o, Article 2or Law 3 of 1992 and, according to his criteria, shall send it to the competent committee. "

11. In Judgment C-975 of 2002 the Court declared the unconstitutionality of Law 719 of 2001, "By which the Laws 23 of 1982 are amended, and 44 of 1993 and other provisions are dictated".

In the judgment the Court reaffirmed that the control of constitutionality should be flexible when referring to the definition of the Permanent Constitutional Commission competent to discuss a bill:

" Therefore, in those cases where the subjects regulated in a draft law do not appear clearly assigned to a specific and specific commission or can be studied by several of them, and the President of the respective congressional cell has arranged to send the commission to the commission that it considers relevant to its thematic affinity, in compliance with respect for the democratic principle, the control of constitutionality that is carried out in this case must be flexible, so that only the declaration of unconstitutionality of the precept can be considered, when the Competition allocation is unreasonable and clearly contrary to the normative content of Article 2or the Act 3of 1992. Only in the latter case, as the Court said, "the judge of the Charter could replace the decision of the president of the Senate of the Republic or the House of Representatives, thereby diminishing the inexequability of the law in question."

" Consequently, in the judgments of unconstitutionality where the competence or incompetence of a standing committee to deal with and approve in the first debate a bill of law, in respect of which there is a reasonable doubt about the fate that must follow, the criterion for defining which is the commission to which this project has to be submitted is eminently material; that is, referring to the subject and the purpose of the law, without it being relevant that among the various subjects treated one has a greater number of articles. This, without prejudice to the fact that, in all other cases, the deliberate and inadvertent non-observance of the powers defined in Article 2or of the Law 3ª of 1992, necessarily leads to the declaration of inexequibility of the accused text. "

however, in this case, the Court concluded that the Congress of the Republic had committed procedural defects in the formation of the law, because the bill had been debated in a permanent constitutional commission different from that indicated. In this regard, he concluded that the dominant matter of the law was intellectual property-the modification of the copyright regime-which is why the bill was to have been dealt with in the First Commissions, and not in the Sextas Commissions, as had happened. To this end, he asserted that " by warning that article 2or of Law 3 of 1992 expressly states that the Permanent Constitutional First Commissions are competent to hear and deal in the first debate with the bills related to the 'intellectual property', the Court does not find that there has been a reasonable doubt, and less a principle of sufficient reason, that the President of the House of Representatives has assigned to the Permanent Sex Commissions the process of the bill that culminated in the issuance of Law 719 of 2001. "

12. Finally, in Judgment C-1040 2004, the Court examined the constitutionality of various articles of Law 814 of 2003, "For which rules are dictated for the promotion of film activity in Colombia".

The law had been partially demanded, because it had been debated in the Senate and the Chamber's Permanent Sex Commissions, even though it included the creation of a parafiscal contribution and a fund for its administration within the instruments it contemplated for the promotion of cinema. For this reason, the complainant considered that it had to be dealt with in the Permanent Terwaxes-competent for tax matters.

In the judgment, the Court found that the central matter of the project was the national cinema and, consequently, the culture, and that "the parafiscal contribution is only one of the means to promote such cultural activity at the national level". Consequently, he declared the constitutionality of the rules demanded, for the charge analyzed.

13. As can be observed, the case law of the Court has defined that the non-compliance with the rules of Law 3of 1992 that indicate the competence of each of the permanent constitutional commissions of the Legislative Chambers generates the declaration of unconstitutionality of the corresponding law. The Corporation has indicated that in the examination of the demands of unconstitutionality founded on the argument that the project was not dealt with in the competent Permanent Constitutional Commission, it is indispensable to try to establish what is the central matter of the project. However, the Court itself has acknowledged that in many cases it cannot be clearly determined which one should be the competent Commission to deal with a particular bill, which is why the constitutionality control that is carried out in this field must be flexible. For this reason, he has indicated that, in the interests of the democratic principle, the control he carries out over the decision of the President of a Legislative Chamber to assign a bill to a commission is a check of irreasonableness, so that these allocations can only be declared unconstitutional when there is no reasonable doubt about the Commission that must know about the project or a principle of reason for the President of a Legislative Chamber to have awarded a project to a certain Commission.

14. Bill No. 077 of 2006 House, 190 of 2007 Senate, "by which rules on transit and transport agents and road control groups of territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", refers to different matters related to transit and transport agents. The rules are organized in four chapters, namely: one of general provisions, another on the hierarchy and the creation of charges on the transit bodies, a third on the moralization of the bodies of transit agents and the system of citizen participation, and the last on the uniforms, their use and other final provisions.

Thus, in the project are rules referred to:

-The professionalization of the activity of the transit and transportation agent and the need to provide an integral academic training to the agents, for which it is available that the transit agencies will be able to create non-formal schools entrusted with such academic training or to contract with recognized public universities (article 3o).

-The delimitation of the jurisdictions of the different transit authorities, without prejudice to the collaboration to be provided (Article 4).

-The determination that each transit agency will have a single specialized body of transit and transport agents that will act only in their respective jurisdiction, whose functions will not be subject to delegation and will not be able to be subject to recruitment with individuals (article 4).

-The general functions entrusted to the bodies of agents of transit and transport of the territorial entities, being of permanent character the tasks of judicial police, the educational, the preventive, the task of acting in solidarity form and the civic surveillance (article 5o).

-The determination that the profession of transit agent belongs to the administrative career and the fixing of the different grades of the same (article 6o).

-The determination of the requirements to be able to enter the bodies of agents of transit and transport of the territorial entities (article 7o).

-The responsibility of the transit bodies to ensure its moralization, for which it establishes its obligation to create courts or ethics committees to issue concepts that must be addressed by the heads of the transit agencies (article 9o).

-The obligation of the transit bodies to develop systems for citizen participation (Article 10).

-The creation of the Committee on Transit and Citizen Participation, which will be responsible for guiding and supervising the relations between the citizenry, the transit agents and the administrative authorities, along with the determination of the members of the same and the functions that it will perform (articles 11-13).

-The determination that the National Government will issue regulations concerning the use of uniforms, designs and other aspects aimed at facilitating the identification of transit agents in the territorial entities and the obligation of transit entities to provide their agents with three free annual allocations (Article 14).

-The determination that the National Government will regulate the law within 90 days of its entry into force (article 15).

As noted, the draft law deals with a wide variety of topics, referring to the professionalization of the activity of transit agents and the linking of these to the administrative career; to the territorial transit bodies; to the moralization of the traffic bodies and to the creation of systems for citizen participation to guide and facilitate the relations between the citizenry, the traffic agents of the territorial entities and the administrative authorities; the uniforms and the flags of the agents; and the regulation of the law.

The President of the House decided that the bill would be dealt with by the Sixth Permanent Commission, which has among its functions the task of knowing about the projects related to transportation. This decision is reproached by the National Government, which considers that with it the article 151 of the Constitution was violated, because the bill was to be known initially by the First Commission of the House.

In the objections, the National Government states, as has already been noted, that while the project refers to the transit agents, this does not mean that its subject is that of transportation. In this regard, it is clear that from the background of the project it is clear that the objective of the project is to "point out the location, denomination, requirements among other of the transit agents within the administrative structure in the territorial entities". It therefore states that the project should have been dealt with before the First Commission, which is responsible for the "structure and organisation of the central national administration".

The Court shares the view that several of the articles in the project are related to "the location, denomination, requirements among other transit agents within the administrative structure in the territorial entities." However, as has been seen, the objective of the project is not exhausted there, as it includes other topics, referred to the transit authorities, the traffic bodies and their functions, the moralization of the same and the citizen participation in these matters. This indicates that the subject matter of the project is not perfectly circumscribed to a Commission and that the President of the House could therefore send it to the Commission which, according to his opinion, was competent. The President decided to refer it to the Sixth Commission, based on the premise that the project was related to the subject of transport.

Now, according to the case law that has been described, when it is not absolutely clear to which permanent constitutional commission the study of a particular bill corresponds to it, the control of constitutionality that the Court makes on the assignment must be flexible, in order to respect the decision of the President of the corresponding Legislative Chamber. Therefore, in these cases the Court can only state that the project's procedure was unconstitutional when the project's award to a certain permanent constitutional commission is evidently unreasonable. That is not the situation that arises in this case, since the reading of the bill that is analyzed makes it clear that the subject of transportation goes through all its rules, which means that the assignment of the same to the Permanent Constitutional Sexual Commissions is reasonable.

Therefore, the Court will declare unfounded the high presidential objection against the bill based on the charge that it was not dealt with in the Permanent Constitutional Commission that corresponded to it.

The bill does not violate Articles 300-7 and 313-6 of the Constitution

15. In the letter of presidential objections it is also stated, as has been said, that articles 1o and 2o of the bill violate the number 7 of article 300 of the Charter, and the number 6 of article 313, as they impose on the departmental and municipal authorities a model of public entity to direct and control the transit and transportation in their jurisdiction, thereby interfering in the determination of the structures of the administrations departmental and municipal.

The aforementioned constitutional norms are almost identical in their wording and refer to the power of the representative assemblies to determine the structure of the territorial administration and to create the institutions that they consider relevant. They state:

" Article 300. It corresponds to the departmental assemblies, by means of ordinances:

" (...)

" 7. To determine the structure of the departmental administration, the functions of its dependencies, the scales of remuneration corresponding to its different categories of jobs; to create the public establishments and the industrial or commercial enterprises of the department and to authorize the formation of societies of mixed economy ".

" Article 313. Corresponds to the councils:

(...)

" 6. To determine the structure of the municipal administration and the functions of its dependencies; the remuneration scales corresponding to the different categories of jobs; to create, at the initiative of the mayor, public establishments and industrial or commercial enterprises and to authorize the formation of societies of mixed economy ".

16. Article 1or the Constitution states that "Colombia is a Social State of organized law in the form of a United Republic, decentralized, with autonomy of its territorial entities ...".

From the previous definition, the question arises about what are the limits between the powers of the Nation and the powers of the territorial entities. Even more so when it is observed that article 287 of the same Constitution states that "[l] as territorial entities enjoy autonomy for the management of their interests, and within the limits of the Constitution and the law" and that the same article mentions among the rights derived from territorial autonomy to "exercise the powers that correspond to them." In turn, article 288 of the Constitution states that " [t] he powers conferred on the various territorial levels shall be exercised in accordance with the principles of coordination, concurrence and subsidiarity in the terms laid down by the law.

In its different sentences, the Court has taken care to establish how the interrelationship between the principles of unity and autonomy operates. Thus, in Statement C535 of 1996, the Court established that the principles of unity and autonomy "must be harmonized" and that "autonomy must be understood as the capacity of the territorial entities to manage their own interests, within the limits of the Constitution and the law." For this reason, he also stated that "the autonomy of the territorial entities is not configured as sovereign power but is explained in a unitary context" and that "the essential core of autonomy is unavailable by the legislator."

this sense, the Court has determined that it is the duty of the legislator to define the spaces of autonomy of the territorial entities, under the respect of certain limits. Thus, in Judgment C-1187 2000, the Court affirmed that " the Political Charter did not define the degree of autonomy that it attributed to the territorial entities, delegating to the legislator such competence. Thus, the degree of autonomy that the territorial authorities have in the Colombian State directly qualifies the law. In other words, territorial autonomy is relative, since it is conceived within a unitary state. " And then, in Providence C-1258 of 2001 the Court concluded that " [e] 1 legislator is authorized to fix the scope of territorial autonomy, within the minimum and maximum limits indicated by the Constitution-in one extreme, the essential core, and in the other, the limit given by the unitary character of the State-which cannot exceed. Between these two limits the legislator, in exercise of his power of configuration, moves to fix the degree of autonomy in each matter or subject in charge of the territorial entities ".

17. The above guidelines have also been applied by the Constitutional Court when it has analyzed the constitutionality of national rules on transportation that are accused of interfering within the scope of the territorial entities ' privileges. In Case C-931 2006, the constitutionality of a rule that established that the Ministry of Transport would set the guidelines for the creation, operation and suppression of transit agencies[4]was studied, which is why the demand made sure that the precept violated territorial autonomy. In the judgment it was expressed that within the essential core of the autonomy of the territorial entities was the definition of its administrative structure, which is why it could not be altered by the Legislator:

" In this scheme, for the distribution of competences between the Nation and the territorial entities, the legislator must take into account that the essential content of autonomy is focused on the possibility of managing the interests themselves (C.P. article 287), one of whose most important manifestations is the right to act through own organs in the administration and the government of matters of regional or local interest. This right, expressly contained in the article 287 Superior, is part of the essential core of autonomy, unavailable by the legislator, and is complemented by the provisions of Articles 300-7 and 313-6 of the Constitution, according to which it is for the territorial entities to determine the structure of their respective administrations, creating the dependencies that are estimated necessary and fixing the correlative functions.

"However, it is clear that, in order to preserve the national interest and the unitary principle, it is up to the legislator to establish the basic conditions for autonomy and to define, in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, the powers of national order to be developed in accordance with the principle of coordination, which presupposes uniform rules and guidelines of action which, without emptying the scope of territorial autonomy, allow for the harmonization of functions."

On the basis of the foregoing, it was stated in the same judgment that " in application of the principle of subsidiarity, the organization and direction of the traffic and transportation related to the territory of their respective jurisdictions is a primary competence of the territorial entities, which, subject to the law and in exercise of their autonomy, will be able to create the administrative dependencies that they deem necessary for this purpose. Such authorities, for the exercise of their own powers, of the functions assigned to them by the law and of which the government delegates them, shall act in accordance with the principle of coordination that guarantees the articulation of the national and territorial levels. "

Therefore, in the judgment the Court decided that the terms "creation" and "cancellation" were unconstitutional, because "the territorial transit agencies are entities of the municipal, district or territorial order, their creation and suppression corresponds to the municipal and district councils and the departmental assemblies." On the contrary, it determined that it was constitutional for the Ministry to set guidelines for the operation of the transit agencies, since that attribution was within the "area of tension-autonomy-autonomy," as long as the guidelines that the Ministry issued were technical in nature and referred to the functions of the national order to be carried out by the transit agencies, either because the law established it or because the National Government would have decided to delegate them.

A similar decision took the Court in Judgment C-1051 of 2001, in which the constitutionality of a rule of Law 53 of 1989 was examined[5], which stated that "[p] the creation of the municipal level transit agencies will be required prior favorable concept of the departmental planning offices." In its judgment, the Court reaffirmed the autonomy of the territorial entities to decide on their administrative structure. He then stated that while it was possible for the law to impose on the municipal authorities the duty to listen to the Departmental Planning Offices before taking the decision to create the transit agencies, the concept of the latter could not be binding, because that did not know the autonomy of the Municipal Councils to establish the administrative structure of the municipality. On the basis of this, he concluded that the word "favorable" was inexequible.

18. As noted, the Court has considered that while the legislator is entitled to regulate the issue of transportation-as authorized by the same number 25 of Article 150 of the Charter, which provides that it is up to the Congress to "[u] nify the rules on traffic police throughout the territory of the Republic"-that faculty cannot affect the essential core of the right to territorial autonomy in regard to the fact that the territorial entities determine their administrative structure.

Well, in the second presidential objection, it is stated precisely that Article 2 of the bill-and by extension also 1o-violates the territorial entities ' attribution of determining their administrative structure. The National Government expresses that Article 2o imposes on the assemblies and councils the obligation to create public entities for the control of transit and transportation, which would mean that they have to assume a certain model of entity for the management of the transit, which would move away from the traditional formula of the transit secretariats.

This reproach was not accepted by the Congress of the Republic or the Public Ministry. The Congress stated that the objective of the project is to regulate the transit agencies and not to provide for the creation of new ones, and that is why in it they use abstract and generic terms that encompass the different forms that transit agencies can assume. He points out that this is why the article speaks of public entities, without referring to any specific form of them. For this reason, he believes that it cannot be affirmed that through the project the legislator is interfering in the administrative structure of the territorial entities. This concept is shared by the Attorney General, who also assures that the objective of the project is to unify the norms on the road control at the territorial level, a matter that is within the functional orbit of the Legislator.

For the analysis of the charge formulated in the objection it is appropriate to recall the content of the articles 1 and 2 of the bill.

" Article 1o. Scope. The rules contained in this law shall apply to transit and transport agencies and to the transit and transport agents of the territorial area.

" Article 2o. Definition. For the application and interpretation of this law, the following definitions shall be taken into account:

" Transit and Transportation Organizations: Public entities of the municipal, district or departmental order that have the function of organizing, directing, and controlling transit and transportation in their respective jurisdiction.

" Transit and Transportation Authority: Any public entity or public employee who is accredited pursuant to Article 3or Law 769 of 2002.

" Transit and Transportation Agent: Every public employee invested with authority to regulate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, monitor, control and intervene in the enforcement of transit and transportation rules in each of the territorial entities.

" Vial Control Group or Transit Agents Corps: Group of public employees with authority as transit and transportation agents legally bound and regulated to transit and transportation agencies.

As has already been stated, the National Government objects to Article 2o, but extends its constitutional reproach to Article 1o, as this precept points out that the rules contained in the law will apply to all transit and transport agencies and to the transit and transportation agents of the territorial scope. However, from the arguments contained in the objections it is inferred that in reality the position expressed in them specifically refers to the apart from the article 2o referring to the agencies of transit and transport, because in the presidential reproach it is manifested that through article 2o the territorial entities are obliged to create " a certain form of entity to direct and to control the transit and the transport, when currently, in the majority of the territorial entities, these functions are being fulfilled by the respective secretariats of transit. This accusation is, of course, only in line with Article 2 (2).

Well, the Court does not consider that from the reading of the normative precept it can be deduced that the norm imposes on the territorial authorities the obligation to create some entity for the handling of the transit in its jurisdiction or to benefit from a model of authority of transit pointed out by the Legislator. The point is limited to establishing a general definition, within which the different modalities of institutional organization existing in the territorial entities for the fulfillment of their function of "organizing, directing and controlling the transit and the transport in their respective jurisdiction". In this sense, the Court shares the position of the Congress of the Republic that the concepts used in Article 2o of the project are general and abstract, in such a way that they understand many possible forms of design of the entity that is responsible for the control of transit and transportation in the territorial area.

In this regard it is important to note that the reproach rule has a text almost identical to the provision of the National Transit Code-Law 769 of 2002, "For which the National Land Transit Code is issued and other provisions are dictated"-which defines the concept of a "transit agency". Says the relevant item of Article 2o:

"Article 2o. Definitions. For the application and interpretation of this code, the following definitions shall be taken into account:

" (...)

"Transit agencies: They are district or departmental municipal administrative units that have the function of organizing and directing traffic and transportation in their respective jurisdiction"[6].

In addition, the rule does not modify article 6or the National Transit Code, which establishes which transit agencies are in the different jurisdictions:

"Article 6or. Transit organizations. They shall be transit agencies in their respective jurisdiction:

" a) Administrative departments, district and/or municipal transit institutes;

" (b) Those designated by the local authority alone and exclusively in municipalities where there is no transit authority;

" (c) Municipal traffic secretariats within the urban area of their respective municipality and the corregimientos;

" (d) The district transit secretariats within the urban area of the special districts;

" (e) The departmental secretariats of transit or the authority designated by the authority, solely and exclusively in the municipalities where there is no transit authority.

" Paragraph 1o. At national level, the Ministry of Transport and the transit agencies in their respective jurisdiction shall be competent to carry out the duties assigned to them in this code.

" Paragraph 2o. It is up to the National Police in its specialized highway corps to control the traffic rules and the application of this code on all the national highways outside the urban perimeter of the municipalities and districts.

" Paragraph 3o. The governors and mayors, the departmental assemblies and the municipal councils, will in no way be able to issue permanent transit rules, which involve additions or modifications to the Transit Code.

" The Mayors within their respective jurisdiction shall issue the rules and shall take the necessary measures for the better management of the transit of persons, animals and vehicles on public roads subject to the provisions of this Code.

"However, mayors of neighboring or adjacent municipalities may enter into inter-administrative agreements to exercise jointly, in whole or in part, the transit functions that correspond to each of them, within the respective jurisdictions that compose them"[7] .

Now, as observed, article 6or the National Transit Code provides for the possibility that transit agencies may be in different forms, among which are the municipal transit secretariats. In this sense, there is no reason for the argument put forward in the presidential objection that the rule that is the object of the repair prevents the municipalities from continuing to entrust the traffic management in their jurisdiction to the transit secretariats. But, in addition, the text of Article 6or of the Code follows that very diverse institutions, such as the administrative departments of transit, the transit secretariats, and even those that designate the local authorities in those municipalities or departments[8] where there is no transito9 authority.

Consequently, the Court does not find that in Article 2 of the bill the legislator is violating the autonomy of the territorial entities, since the rule does not interfere with the territorial entities ' function of determining their administrative structure, nor does it impose a specific model of transit and transportation agency.

Therefore, in this case it will also be stated that the objection is unfounded.

VII. DECISION

On the merits of the above, the Plena Chamber of the Constitutional Court, on behalf of the people and by mandate of the Constitution,

RESOLVES:

First. To declare unfounded the objections of unconstitutionality formulated by the President of the Republic against Bill 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Chamber, "by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated".

Second. Consequently, to declare exequable the Bill of Law No. 190 of 2007 Senate, 077 of 2006 Chamber, "by which rules on agents of transit and transport and groups of traffic control of the territorial entities are unified and other provisions are dictated", only for the charges raised in the objections analyzed in this sentence.

Third. Give compliance with the provisions of article 167 of the Political Constitution.

Notify, contact, publish, insert in the Constitutional Court Gazette and file the file.

Nilson Pinilla Pinilla, President (absent with excuse); Juan Carlos Henao Pérez, Maria Victoria Calle Correa, Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva, Gabriel Eduardo Mendoza Martelo, Mauricio González Cuervo, Jorge Ignacio Pretelt Chaljub, Humberto Antonio Sierra Porto, Jorge Ivan Palacio Palacio, Magistrates; Martha Victoria Sachica of Moncaleano, General Secretariat.

Statement C-306109.

* * *

1. View, for example, the C-731 2008, C-482 2008, and C-1249 Statements of 2001.

2. Article 2or Law 3ª of 1992 was reformed by Law 754 of 2002, "for which the article 2or of Law 3 of 1992 is amended, as regards the composition of the Permanent Constitutional Commissions."

3. In this regard, it was concluded in the judgment that " the distribution of the work in the Congress of the Republic has profound democratic and efficient connotations in the fulfillment of the legislative function.

4. The standard demanded was article 18 (1) of Law 1005 of 2006, which added and amended the National Land Transit Code (Law 769 of 2002). The text of the sentence demanded was as follows: "The Ministry of Transport shall fix the guidelines to which the transit agencies must be held, for their creation, operation and cancellation." In its judgment, the Court stated, first, that the rule had a deficient wording, which is why a series of clarifications on it had to be made. Thus, it established that, according to the literal tenor, the recipients of the Ministry's guidelines would be the transit agencies, when it was evident that the guidelines were directed "to the authorities that at the territorial level have competence for the creation of a transit agency." Furthermore, it clarified that it should be understood that the rule concerned the abolition of public entities-and not the cancellation of public entities.

5. "For which functions are assigned to the National Transportation Institute, those related to automotive land transit are added throughout the country and extraordinary powers are granted to reform the National Land Transit Code."

6. The Court has not ruled on this definition.

7. It is important to note that the Court has only ruled on paragraph 1 of paragraph 3 of this article, which was declared to be exequable, on the basis of the charges analyzed, in Judgment C-568 of 2003.

8. The literal (e) prescribes: "e) the departmental secretariats of transit or the body designated by the authority, solely and exclusively in the municipalities where there is no transit authority." It would all indicate that there is a mistake in referring to this point to the municipalities, since it should deal with the departments.

9. Article 3or the Code defines which transit authorities are:

"Article 3or. Transit authorities. They are transit authorities in their order, the following:

" The Ministry of Transport.

" Governors and Mayors.

" The departmental, municipal or district transit agencies.

" The National Police in its specialized police corps of urban traffic and highway police.

" The Police Inspectors, the Transit Inspectors, Corregidores or whoever does their time in each territorial entity.

" The General Superintendence of Ports and Transportation.

" Military forces to comply exclusively with paragraph 5 of this article.

" Transit and Transportation agents. (...) ".

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