Political Constitution of Colombia (1991)

The National Congress may decree the formation of new departments as long as the requirements mandated in the Institutional Act of Territorial Planning are completed and once the procedures, studies, and popular consultation are verified.

The departments enjoy autonomy for the administration of sectional matters as well as the planning and promotion of economic and social development within their territory and within the limits established by the Constitution.

The departments exercise administrative functions of coordination, dovetailing with municipal action, intermediation between the nation and the municipalities, and the lending of the services determined by the Constitution and the relevant statutes.

An Act shall regulate matters connected with the exercise of the powers which the Constitution grants the departments.

In each department there shall be a popularly elected political-administrative body known as departmental assembly, which shall be composed of no fewer than eleven (11) nor more than thirty-one (31) members. This body shall enjoy administrative autonomy and have its own budget, and may exercise political control over the departmental administration.

The regime of disqualifications and incompatibilities of the deputies shall be determined by statute. It may not be less strict than the one provided for with regard to members of Congress for the corresponding matters. The term of the deputies shall be four years, and they shall have the status of civil servants.

In order to be elected deputy a person has to be a citizen of full capacity, must not have been sentenced to imprisonment, except for political offenses or misdemeanors, and must have resided in the respective constituency in the year immediately prior to the election.

The members of the Departmental Assembly shall have the right to allowances during the relevant sessions, and shall be provided with a regime of benefits and social security, in the terms established by statute.

The departmental assemblies, by means of ordinances, exercise the following powers:

To regulate the exercise of the functions and the provision of services for which the department is responsible.

To enact the regulations connected with the planning, economic and social development, financial support of and borrowing to the municipalities, tourism, transportation, the environment, public works, means of communication, and development of their border areas.

To adopt, in accordance with an Act, the plans and programs of economic and social development and public works, with the determination of investments and means that are considered necessary to promote their execution and to secure their completion.

To decree, in accordance with an Act, the taxes and levies necessary for the execution of the departmental functions.

To enact the organic rules on the departmental budget and the annual budget of revenues and expenditures.

To create and eliminate, subject to the requirements stipulated by statute, municipalities, segregate or aggregate municipal territories, and organize provinces.

To determine the structure of the departmental administration, the functions of their dependencies, the scales of remuneration appropriate to the various categories of employment; create the public institutions and industrial or commercial enterprises of the department, and authorize the formation of mixed [public-private] companies.

To issue policy directives on any matter that is not regulated by statute.

To authorize the Governor of the Department to make contracts, negotiate loans, transfer goods and exercise, temporarily, specific functions of those which correspond to the Departmental Assemblies.

To regulate, concurrently with the municipality, the areas of sports, education, and public health within the limits determined by statute.

To request reports on the exercise of their respective functions from the Controller General of the Department, the Cabinet Secretary, the chiefs of the administrative departments and the directors of the decentralized entities at the departmental level.

To fulfill the other functions assigned to them by the Constitution and the statute.

The plans and programs of development and public works shall be coordinated and integrated with the municipal, regional, and national plans and programs.

The ordinances referred to in subparagraphs 3, 5, and 7 of this article, those which decree investments, shares, or the transfer of departmental revenues and property, and those that create services for which the department is responsible or from whom the responsibility is transferred to may be enacted or amended only upon the initiative of the Governor.

To summon and invite the secretaries of the office of the Governor to attend the sessions of the assembly. The summons must be made not less than five days prior to a session and be formulated in the form of a written questionnaire. In case the secretaries do not attend, without an excuse accepted by the assembly, the latter may table a motion of censure. The secretaries must be heard at the session for which they were summoned, without prejudice to the possibility that the discussion is continued at subsequent sessions following a decision of the assembly. The discussion may not extend to other issues than those in the questionnaire and shall be placed at the top of the session’s agenda.

To table a motion of censure with respect to the secretaries of the office of the Governor for matters related to their official functions, or for ignoring the requests or summons of the assembly. The motion of censure must be tabled by one third of the members who make up the assembly. The vote shall take place between the third and 10th day following the end of the discussion, with a public hearing of the respective official. Approval of the motion shall require the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members of the relevant body. Once the motion is approved, the official shall be relieved of his/her functions. If it is voted down, no new motion of censure may be proposed on the same matter unless it is supported by new facts. The resignation of the official against which the censure motion has been tabled does not prevent the latter from being approved in accordance with the provisions of this Article.

An Act shall stipulate the cases and the specific functions which the assemblies may delegate in the municipal councils. At any moment, the assemblies may reassume the exercise of the delegated functions.

An Act may establish for one or several departments various qualifications and jurisdictions of administrative and fiscal management different from those stipulated for them in the Constitution, with attention to the need of improving the administration or lending of public services in accordance with their population, economic and natural resources, and social, cultural, and ecological circumstances.

In order to elaborate on the above, an Act may delegate to one or several departments the powers pertaining to national public organs or entities.

In each of the departments there shall be a governor who shall be the head of the sectional administration and legal representative of the department; the governor shall be the agent of the President of the Republic for the maintenance of the public order and for the execution of the general economic policy as well as for those matters which, through agreements, the nation agrees to delegate to the department. The governors shall be elected for periods of four years and may not be reelected for the subsequent term.

An Act shall determine the qualifications, requirements, disabilities, and incompatibilities of the governors; shall regulate their election; shall determine the cases in which they are permanently or temporarily prevented from discharge of their official duties, and regulate the manner in which the vacancy resulting in these cases is filled; and shall stipulate the other provisions necessary for the normal execution of their responsibilities.

Provided that the governor is permanently prevented from discharging the duties of his/her office for more than eighteen (18) months before the end of his/her term, a Governor shall be elected for the remaining period. In case the end of the term is less than eighteen (18) months away, the President of the Republic shall appoint a governor for the rest of the term, who must belong to the party, political group or coalition for which the elected governor had been registered.

The President of the Republic, in the restricted cases stipulated by an Act, may suspend or remove governors from office.

The regime of disabilities and incompatibilities applying to them shall be no less strict than that established for the President of the Republic.

The Governor exercises the following powers:

To execute the Constitution and enforce it as well as the statutes, government decrees, and ordinances of the departmental assemblies.

To direct and coordinate the department’s administrative actions and to act in its name as manager and promoter of the complete development of its territory, in accordance with the Constitution and laws.

To direct and coordinate national services as delegated to the governor by the President of the Republic.

To present to the departmental assembly in a timely manner proposals for ordinances regarding plans and programs of economic and social development, public works, and the annual budget of revenues and expenditures.

To appoint and to remove freely managers or directors of public institutions and of industrial or commercial enterprises of the department. The representatives of the department on the executive boards of such entities and the directors or managers of same are agents of the Governor.

In accordance with general plans and programs, to encourage enterprises, industries, and activities which correspond to the cultural, social and economic development of the department and do not fall under the responsibility of the Nation or the municipalities.

To create, eliminate, and merge positions in the department’s dependencies, to define their special functions and to fix their remuneration subject to statute and the respective ordinances. He/she may not create obligations at the expense of the departmental treasury that exceed the global amount specified for the respective service in the budget as initially approved.

To eliminate or merge departmental entities in accordance with ordinances.

To veto on grounds of unconstitutionality, illegality, or unsuitability proposed ordinances, or to approve and promulgate them.

To examine the acts of municipal councils and mayors and, on grounds of unconstitutionality or illegality, submit them to the competent Tribunal so that it may decide on their validity.

To see to the accurate collection of departmental revenues, revenues of the decentralized entities, and of those which may be the object of transfers by the nation.

To convene the departmental assembly for special sessions in which it shall only consider the issues and matters for which it was summoned.

To select from the lists submitted by the respective national head of administration the managers or sectional heads of public institutions at the national level which operate in the department, in accordance with the relevant statute.

To exercise administrative functions that the President of the Republic may delegate.

Other powers specified by the Constitution, laws, and ordinances.

Two or more departments may organize themselves as administrative and planning regions with legal personality, autonomy, and their own resources. Their principal purpose shall be the economic and social development of the respective territory.

The respective Institutional Act, subject to the prior plan of the Committee of Territorial Planning, shall establish the conditions to solicit the conversion of the region into a territorial entity. The decision taken by Congress shall be submitted in each case to a referendum by the citizens of the departments concerned.

The same law shall establish the powers, organs of administration, and resources of the regions and their participation in the handling of revenues originating from the National Endowment Fund. It shall also define the principles for the adoption of the special statute of each region.

An Act may limit the departmental appropriations earmarked for the honoraria of deputies and the operating expenses of the assemblies and departmental controllers’ offices.

It shall be necessary to transform into a department the districts of Arauca, Casanare, Putumayo, the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina and the police districts (comisarías) of Amazonas, Guaviare, Guainia, Vaupés, and Vichada. The assets and rights which used to belong to the intendencies (intendencias) and police stations on any account shall continue being the property of the respective departments.

The department of San Andrés Archipelago, Providencia, and Santa Catalina shall be regulated, in addition to the provision in the Constitution and the statutes for the other departments, by special provisions which in administrative, immigration, fiscal, foreign trade, exchange, financial, and economic development matters shall be established by the legislative.

By means of a law approved by the majority of the members of each House, it shall be possible to limit the exercise of the rights of movement and residence, establish controls on the density of population, regulate the use of the land, and submit to special conditions the transfer of immovable property in order to protect the cultural identity of the native [Indian] communities and preserve the environment and natural resources of the archipelago.

Through the creation of the municipalities that may occur, the departmental assembly shall guarantee the institutional expression of the original communities of San Andrés. The municipality of Providencia shall have a share of no less than twenty percent of the total value of said departmental revenues.