President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, declared a state of emergency in the department of La Guajira, anticipating a malnutrition crisis at the end of 2023. The Constitutional Court has just blocked his state of emergency, stating that the situation is not “sufficient” to warrant emergency intervention.
As of the 2nd of October 2023, the Colombian Constitutional Court formally denied President Gustavo Petro’s declaration of a state of emergency in La Guajira, the northernmost department of Colombia known for its indigenous inhabitants, the Wayúus.
Mr. Petro, elected in 2022, declared an “economic, social and ecological” state of emergency in La Guajira on July 2, 2023, which gave him extraordinary legislative powers to face the expected environmental and humanitarian challenges in the region.
The concerns of facing a humanitarian crisis come due to a combination of expected and unpredictable climate factors.
El Niño will likely increase drought and malnutrition in the Wayúu people
In August, the president spoke in front of the Constitutional Court to defend his declaration of a state of emergency, saying that the region was likely to face an aggravation of its already existing humanitarian problems throughout the year.
Petro said that the cultural tendency of the Wayúu people to disperse creates difficulty in providing for their basic needs. Petro declared a state of emergency in order to bypass the Colombian Congress in legislating against the upcoming climatic issues later in the year.
Data from the Colombian government shows that La Guajira is the financially poorest department in Colombia, with 67% poverty per capita in 2021. The same year, data show that 53% of people from the department suffered from a lack of basic needs like adequate shelter, which was also the highest rate in the country. In terms of multidimensional poverty, including malnutrition, La Guajira was the 4th highest in the country with 43% in 2022.
Due to the high likelihood of El Niño’s weather effects creating droughts, combined with the unpredictable effects of climate change, Petro said he expects that malnutrition will become worse for the Wayúu people, due to the aridity and the lack of precipitation that is guaranteed if El Niño does occur. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the likelihood of El Niño occurring this year is 90%, as of June 2023.
Since La Guajira is an isolated region on the coast, access to clean water is a concern.
Possibility to bypass Congress but the Court monitors the President’s decisions
In the Court’s denial of the state of emergency, there was an acknowledgment of the humanitarian problems on the horizon in La Guajira, and recognized the imminence of the situation. They also recognized that the upcoming malnutrition crisis in La Guajira was real and that the president was not committing any error in “interpreting” the situation.
However, in the Court’s opinion, there is not a sufficient reason for emergency powers to be given in this situation.
For the Court, it is the “constitutional responsibility” of the Colombian Congress to “prevent structural problems or their aggravation,” including the malnutrition of inhabitants of La Guajira. Therefore, it is not the role of the president to bypass Congress in this situation. Despite its ruling, the Court said that Congress did not do enough to prevent this situation.
To prevent further aggravation of the issues in la Guajira, the Court delayed their blockage of the state of emergency until 2024. Therefore, the president will have special privileges to intervene in La Guajira until the 2nd of July 2024, which will be “monitored” by the Court, making sure that the president’s interventions are “strictly necessary” in the region.
At the end of September, the government started sending a citizen income, half a million pesos (115 dollars) per month, in the north of La Guajira to mothers who are heads of a household.
