Iván Duque is sentenced to five days of house arrest for failing to protect a Colombian national park

The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, has been sentenced to five days of house arrest for failing to comply with a sentence for the protection of the Los Nevados National Natural Park.

The Superior Court of Ibagué has published this Saturday the ruling for contempt of a sentence of the Supreme Court of Justice in which it declared the Park as a subject of rights.

The sentence considers that the Government headed by Duque has not complied with the creation of a Special Command of the Public Force for environmental crimes in that national park.

"Declare in contempt of the order issued in section (i) by the Labor Cassation Chamber of the Honorable Supreme Court of Justice in judgment STL10716 of 2020, the President of the Republic of Colombia, Doctor IVÁN DUQUE MÁRQUEZ, in accordance with the motives of this ruling," the document indicates.

For this reason, it orders, as a sanction for contempt, to impose on President Iván Duque "a measure of house arrest for five (5) days, for which compliance is entrusted to the Director of the National Police or the Superior who attends the police functions in the Palace of Nariño and a fine equivalent to fifteen (15) current monthly legal minimum wages".

The Colombian president has assured this Saturday during a meeting in the department of Córdoba in which he has praised his environmental management that his house arrest "violates the Constitution."

"Today we have seen an act, first of all that is inexplicable, because they want to go over the constitutional jurisdiction, where the arrest of the President of the Republic is allegedly ordered for not complying," Duque said in statements collected by RCN Radio.

Duque has stated that he expects the Judicial Disciplinary Council and the Prosecutor's Office to act taking into account that these decisions, which also "violate the Constitution", must be observed by all instances so that it is "absolutely clear what was the true meaning of a political decision.

The president of Colombia has maintained that he has always had a great culture of biodiversity conservation, and has assured that Colombia "is the second most biodiverse country on the planet." He has also recalled that in his government the climate action laws and the environmental crimes law have gone ahead.

The Colombian president has the possibility of appealing the ruling, since the sanctions imposed by the Court of Ibagué are not immediately applicable.