:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/SRLVDUSFLNCTPBXVF72L3YT5AI.jpeg "Health reform: Roy Barreras requested a legal concept from the Council of State")
On February 13, the health reform of Gustavo Petro’s government was tabled in the Congress of the Republic. It is perhaps the national government project that has generated the most controversy in different sectors of public opinion and politics. And although the reform is already in the Legislative Assembly to be debated, this process could not begin due to a procedural doubt: it must be treated as a statutory law or an ordinary law.
Health reform: What are the doubts about the process in Congress that could bring down the project
It is possible that the process of the new insurance model will have to wait a month to start the legislative process to become law
This is the new dilemma facing the reform, which is why the President of Congress and Senator of the Historic Pact, Roy Barreras, asked the Consultation Chamber of the Council of State and the Ministry of the Interior for a design legal “on the nature” or Ordinary) of the Health Reform”. This echoes the request of 25 members of Congress.
Along with his request, which he made on Twitter, he wrote that according to his legal office’s concept, it should be treated as common law:
“As I have said since this morning, as the author of the statutory health law, I consider this reform to develop the law and is therefore ORDINARY (see SC 902 of 2011). The Reform will not stop in its process within the Seventh Committee. Joint concept from my legal office,” Barreras wrote on Twitter.
According to Barreras’ lawyers, the bill “contains a global reform of the system, without that meaning that it modifies the essence of the law, and (…) that a global regulation is necessary does not mean that the law be ignored from up to the legislature to define its treatment until the essential core of the law is affected, with greater scope for legal configuration by the Congress of the Republic, so that PL 339 of 2023 can be treated as an ordinary law.
Health reform will be discussed in special sessions of Congress
Interior Minister Alfonso Prada assured that the document does not intend to change the definition or content of the concept of fundamental rights in the country
It is important to remember that according to judgment C-756 of 2008, there are five interpretative rules to know which regulations relating to fundamental rights must be subject to written law and which must be subject to common law. It is on this sentence that the legal team of Senator Barreras relies to recall that the reform must be treated as common law.
“Consequently, the ordinary or statutory legislative procedure will be defined by the content of the matter to be regulated and not by the name that the legislator will designate; (iii) only the essential core of the fundamental right is regulated by statutory law, so that if a right has a greater margin of legal configuration, regulation by statutory law will be less,” reads the judgment C -756 of 2008, quoted by lawyers for Barreras.
Both the president Gustavo Petro like the minister Caroline Liege They argue that this is ordinary law. The president even warned that the reform aims to modify Law 100 – which is ordinary – and not to reform the statutory health law of 2015.
“Bill 100 is ordinary law and what we have presented is a reform of Bill 100. Statutory health law already exists and we are not going to reform it,” the president wrote on Twitter.
However, nearly 30 members of Congress have warned that it is law and should therefore be dealt with by this special procedure. If this is not done correctly, the court may declare the rule or part of it unenforceable when approved.
“It is essential that people know about the reforms”: Alfonso Prada on health reform
According to the Minister, the changes that the reform will generate will guarantee the right to health in all the territories of the country
For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, confirmed that on the afternoon of February 15 he tabled before the President of the House of Representatives the bill which adds the document for the reform of the health at extraordinary sessions. I also set out the national government’s position regarding the content of the law, explaining that it is essentially an ordinary law that expands on Statutory Law 1751 of 2015.
“The decree that adds extraordinary sessions to be able to advance in the study of the health system that we have proposed with President Gustavo Petro at the head and, with the Minister of Health.”
Minister Prada also assured that the document does not intend to modify the definition or content of the concept of the fundamental right to health in the country, therefore, the modifications that will be presented for discussion will only take into account the instruments to provide full effectiveness, said fundamental right.
“It does not modify the principleist definition or content, that is, it does not modify the principles or the definition of the concept of the fundamental right to health, it only includes the instruments by which the fundamental right to health is fully endowed with efficiency”.
This corresponds to the concept of the lawyers of Senator Barreras. For the time being, the Council of State must decide so that the process can move forward without running the risk that the Constitutional Court will end up defeating the reform.