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OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE NATION

INSTITUTIONAL TEXT
KATIO NATIVE
LANGUAGES
COLOMBIAN NETWORK OF ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS - RED COLOMBIA VERDE NIT 900.188.802-2

The Attorney General's Office, in response to constitutional and legal mandates and
in order to maintain a close relationship with the citizenry, is committed to guaranteeing
the rights and interests of the community, promoting ethical discipline and restoring
trust in the public function; To this end, we serve citizens by providing care with a
differential approach, dignified, respectful, equal, equitable, timely, diligent and
efficient treatment, under the principles of respect for human dignity, rectitude, good
faith and citizen participation.
The Attorney General's Office is the Entity that represents citizens before the State.
It is the highest body of the Public Ministry, also made up of the Ombudsman's Office
and the ombudsmen. Made up of nearly 4,000 employees, the Attorney General's
Office has administrative, financial and budgetary autonomy in the terms defined by
the Organic Statute of the National Budget. It is its obligation to ensure the correct
exercise of the functions entrusted in the Constitution and the Law to public servants
and it does so through its three main missionary functions:

1. PREVENTIVE FUNCTION AND SERVICES: Considering the main responsibility

of the Attorney General's Office, which is committed to "preventing rather than
punishing", monitoring the actions of public servants and warning of any fact that may
violate current regulations, without implying co-administration or interference in the
management of state entities. It is about vigilance and preventive control, the exercise
of constitutionally enshrined citizen actions, and the processing of complaints and
petitions to protect fundamental, social, economic, environmental and cultural rights,
especially of vulnerable groups.

2. INTERVENTION AND SERVICES FUNCTION: In its capacity as a procedural

subject, the Attorney General's Office intervenes before the Contentious-Administrative
and Constitutional jurisdictions and before the different instances of the criminal,
military, civil, environmental and agrarian, family, before the Superior Council of the
Judiciary and the administrative and police authorities. Its power of intervention is not
optional but mandatory and is developed selectively when the Attorney General of
the Nation deems it necessary and charges
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transcendence as long as it is developed in defense of fundamental rights and

guarantees.
3. DISCIPLINARY FUNCTION: The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation is in
charge of initiating, carrying out and ruling on investigations that are carried out due
to disciplinary offenses against public servants and against individuals who exercise
public functions or handle state money, in accordance with what established in the
Single Disciplinary Code.
What functions does the Attorney General's Office fulfill?
By virtue of articles 277 and 278 of the 1991 Constitution, it fulfills three missionary
functions: Preventive and management control: aimed at preventing public servants
and individuals who exercise public functions from engaging in sanctionable conduct
or preventing conduct that violates the legal, economic and social order. Likewise,
this function is related to the protection and promotion of the fundamental rights and
duties of the State and society; Intervention: the Attorney General's Office has the
power to represent society before judicial bodies, defends collective and society
interests and acts as a body for monitoring constitutionality and legality before any
body of the Republic, Disciplinary: oriented to advance and decide the investigations
that for alleged disciplinary offenses are followed against public servants and
individuals who exercise public functions or handle State money, in order to promote
the diligent and efficient exercise of public function.

Before whom does the Attorney act?

In compliance with the preventive function, the Office of the Attorney General of the
Nation can act against all entities of the national, departmental or municipal order
that are competent; it can also call for the participation of citizens or specific social
sectors, as well as private organizations, as the case may be, under the parameters
that the preventive action warrants. Regarding the disciplinary function, the Office of
the Attorney General of the Nation has the power to exercise preferential disciplinary
control to advance and decide investigations that for alleged disciplinary offenses are
followed against public servants and individuals who exercise public functions. And
for the function of intervention, it has the power to act when necessary, before
ordinary justice, the Attorney General's Office, the Constitutional Court, the
Contentious Administrative Court and the Superior Council of the Judiciary, in
defense of the legal order, of the patrimony of the guarantees and fundamental rights
of Colombians. The areas of intervention are those related to family; civil matters;
labor; penalties; environmental and agrarian; and administrative litigation, that is,
when there are claims by individuals or private entities before the State or between
State entities aimed at obtaining an economic claim.
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