Friction between the Branches of Government Regarding the Civil Service in Colombia

he civil service is important for managing the affairs of the State and the public administration. According to Ramón Parada Vásquez, the civil service should be understood as the group of people who are vested with powers and competences, and fulfil certain functions in order to provide public services within the legal framework in which they must develop their activities and account for them. The present paper is twofold: first, it presents the evolution of the civil service from the time the Colombian nation-State is consolidated until the Political Constitution of 1991, outlining the criteria, principles and values that have been presided over the treatment being given to the purpose of this study. Second, the present text gives an account of several readings and interpretations that the branches of the government have been giving to the Charter with regard to the civil service and administrative career. Both will be available in two levels of complexity: the first, with the enactment of laws and the second, with the issuance of legislative acts. To demonstrate, in this context, the frictions between the branches of Government, the Constitutional Court’s sentences in defense of the Cherter are presented, with which it takes out of the legal system law provisions intended to violate the Political Constitution; those provisions have been presented under the pretext of solving a problem of temporary character of thousands of public employees circumventing the selection process. For this reason, there has been a permanent friction among the three branches of government. In the end, the Constitutional Court’s decisions have prevailed and with its permanent teaching it has prompted the Executive and the Legislative to work independently but harmoniously as it is established in the 1991 Constitution.