Political Constitution of Colombia (1991)

Outside of the general division of the territory, there shall be divisions determined by statute for the exercise of the functions and services for which the State is responsible.

Departments, districts, municipalities, and indigenous reservations are territorial entities.

An Act may grant the status of territorial entities to the regions and provinces that are formed under the terms of the Constitution and the relevant statute.

Territorial entities enjoy autonomy for the management of their interests within the limits of the Constitution and the relevant statute. By virtue of this they shall have the following rights:

To govern themselves under their own authorities.

To exercise the jurisdictions appropriate to them.

To administer their resources and establish the taxes necessary for the exercise of their functions.

To participate in national revenues.

The Institutional Act on Territorial Organization shall establish the distribution of powers between the Nation and the territorial entities.

The powers assigned to the various territorial levels shall be exercised in accordance with the principles of coordination, competition, and subsidiarity under the terms stipulated by statute.

Under the authority of an Act, the departments and municipalities located in border areas may promote directly with the territorial entity bordering on the neighboring country on a level of equality, cooperation, and integration, programs whose purpose is to promote community development, the lending of public services, and the protection of the environment.

With the execution of the requirements and formalities stipulated by statute, and in the cases determined therefrom, the periodic review of the borders of territorial entities shall be effected and the official map of the Republic shall be published.

The members of the public associations of territorial entities may not accept any position in the public administration if doing so would make them lose their investiture.

The controllers and agents may be involved in the joint administrative boards and councils within which they operate in the respective territorial entities only when they are expressly invited for specific purposes.

The deputies and councilors and their kin up to the degree stipulated by statute are prohibited from participating in executive boards of the decentralized entities of the respective department, district, or municipality.

Spouses or permanent companions of the deputies and councilors may not be designated officials of corresponding territorial entity if they are kin to the second level of consanguinity, first of affinity or merely civil.

Without prejudice to what is established in the Constitution, an Act shall determine the qualifications, disabilities, incompatibilities, date of possession, durations of sessions, absolute or temporary disqualifications, causes of expulsion, and forms of filling the vacancies of the citizens who may be elected by popular vote for the implementation of the public functions in the territorial entities. An Act shall also stipulate the other necessary provisions for their election and performance of their functions.

An Act may not concede exemptions nor preferential treatment in relation to the property taxes of the territorial entities. Nor may it impose surtaxes on top of taxes except as stipulated in Article 317.

The territorial entities may issue public notes and bonds of public debt, subject to the conditions of the financial market, and also to contract foreign credit, all of this in accordance with the Act regulating the matter.

For the preservation of the public order or for its restoration where it has been disturbed, the decrees and orders of the President of the Republic shall be applied forthwith and preferentially over measures decreed by the governors; the decrees and orders of governors shall be applied in similar manner and with the same effects in relation to the measures of mayors.