The mayor of Medellín, Federico Gutiérrez, filed a formal request for an urgent precautionary measure before the Constitutional Court on January 13, with the purpose of immediately suspending the effects of the economic emergency decree issued by the National Government at the end of December 2025.
As explained by the local president, the action seeks to stop what he considers a de facto tax reform, implemented without due debate in the Congress of the Republic.
“A substantive study is already being distributed within the Constitutional Court, (I hope) this will be suspended through a precautionary measure that we filed, because clearly the elements for the economic emergency that President Petro alleges are not there.”said Gutiérrez.
According to the mayor of Medellín, the decree has begun to generate direct impacts on citizens’ pockets since January 1, 2026, through new charges that affect basic consumer products and services.
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During a press conference, Gutiérrez assured that the decree is a consequence of the Government’s inability to carry out a tax reform in Congress and described the emergency as a “self-generated” figure due to fiscal management problems. In this context, he stated that the Executive would be governing through decrees to evade legislative control.
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The president also called on governors, mayors and economic unions in the country to join the request, in order to stop what he called “governance by exception,” which according to the president, puts institutional balance and legal security at risk.
The Constitutional Court has already begun sessions of the filing of the appeal to evaluate the origin of the precautionary measure, while the background study on the constitutionality of the decree progresses. If the provisional suspension is granted, the effects of the economic emergency would be frozen until a final decision is issued.
Gutiérrez insisted that the request seeks to protect not only Medellín and Antioquia, but Colombian households in general, and expressed his expectation that the high court will act promptly in the face of the fiscal effects that would already be felt in the country.
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