December 06, 2020 – 06:50 am
2020-12-06 By:
Francisco José Lloreda Mera
A few days ago a guardianship judge ordered the Ministry of Health to demand the PCR test again for those who enter the country by air and even if it is negative, to keep quarantine for fourteen days.
The Minister of the branch requested clarification of the ruling. The judge’s response was immediate: he insisted on the decision, leading the Government to point out the impossibility of complying with the ruling, which for some is contempt.
The ruling stems from a guardianship filed by a lawyer who considered a violation of some fundamental rights, the suspension of the test for those who enter the country by air. He is surely a genius in public health and epidemiology, since he dismisses the analyzes and recommendations of the World Health Organization, WHO, which warns about the ineffectiveness of PCR tests for entry into the country.
The Minister had pointed out that since we are in the mitigation phase of the pandemic and that the level of internal contagion is similar to that of the countries with which Colombia exchanges by air, the PCR does not make a major difference in the risk of contagion. The decision not to require it was made then, after consultation with the WHO and the Colombian Association of Infectology. But the ‘medical knowledge’ of the guardian and the judge prevailed.
It prevailed, because the judge, instead of not meddling in matters that are not his expertise or his concern and rejecting the guardianship outright, it seemed a wonder what the plaintiff indicated, and as is customary in the country, he left to teach on specialized topics.
One more example of lawyers – my discredited profession – who abuse guardianship, absorbed by the vanity and omnipresent power that they now hold.
The guardianship, the ruling and the clarification, in addition to contradicting the government’s policy regarding the pandemic, are paradoxical and laughable. It literally says that if the PCR is carried out in a time that exceeds 48 hours, when entering the country it must be confined for fourteen days, but if it is carried out in that period of time, no. And that, even if the test is negative, they must keep quarantine, including the few tourists who get to know Colombia.
Some will say that this must be because there is the possibility of having been infected and being asymptomatic. Valid. But, we should ask the same of all those who are inside the country and take the test and it comes out negative; an indefinite circle of quarantines. And it is inexplicable that the test and quarantine are required of those who arrive by air and not those who manage to enter by land or sea; they must be immune.
If this were not enough, the reasoning of the lawyer and the guardianship judge draws attention. They believe that the greatest risk of contagion is the travelers who plan to arrive in the country, when they are the agglomerations in the interior, promoted or even acolyzed by mayors, who fail to comply with the legal prohibition of holding meetings of more than 50 people. Nothing happens to these local leaders, nor to the citizens. Nobody supervises them.
It is difficult to pretend that guardianships are not filed even if they are contrary to scientific knowledge and the recommendations of health authorities. What the country does expect is that the judges, and in this case those under guardianship, make use of their power of discernment and act in accordance with the dignity of their position. This implies not claiming knowledge that is lacking or usurping competencies from the other branches of power. The country is fed up with the dictatorship of the judges, at all levels. This is one more sample of his excesses.
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