Martha Lucía Zamora Ávila (born 11 March 1960) is a Colombian lawyer and politician. She served as
Attorney General of Colombia
The Office of the Attorney General of Colombia ( es, Fiscalía General de la Nación; literally "General Prosecutorial Office of the Nation") is the Colombian institution part of the Colombian judicial branch of Government with administrative a ...
from 5 to 29 March 2012, after the resignation of
Viviane Morales.
Professional career
Born in
Zipaquirá
Zipaquirá () is a municipality and city of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca. Its neighboring municipalities are Cogua and Nemocón to the north; Tocancipá to the east; Tabio, Cajicá and Sopó to the south; and Subachoque and ...
, Martha Lucía Zamora graduated from the
Universidad Externado, and worked as a professor at
Sergio Arboleda and
Saint Thomas Aquinas universities before beginning a long career in the
Judiciary of Colombia.
She began as secretary of the Justice Commission of the
National Constituent Assembly in 1991, a position that allowed her to learn the details of the nascent Prosecutor's Office, the
Constitutional Court
A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
, the
Superior Council of Judicature, and other institutions created by the
Constitution of 1991
The Political Constitution of Colombia of 1991 ( es, Constitución Política de Colombia de 1991), is the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia. It was promulgated in Constitutional Gazette number 114 on Thursday, July 4, 1991, and is also ...
.
A year later, Judge Alejandro Martínez Caballero took her as an assistant magistrate to the Constitutional Court, and there she was the promoter of several guardianship decisions, such as the sentence that eliminated the ''chepitos'' (debt collectors), and the first action that ordered a school to readmit a pregnant girl. Likewise, she was the manager of a key decision that determined the minimum conditions of imprisonment for the mentally ill.
[
She then joined the Prosecutor's Office during ]Gustavo de Greiff
Gustavo de Greiff Restrepo (b. June 20, 1929 – d. July 19, 2018) was a Colombian lawyer, educator and activist, who served as Attorney General of Colombia during the Gaviria presidency and later as Ambassador to Mexico during the Samper pre ...
's administration, becoming the first female attorney delegated to the Supreme Court. She held the same position during the tenures of prosecutors Alfonso Valdivieso and Alfonso Gómez Méndez. This led to her being involved in delicate processes that aroused controversy at the time.[
In 2001 she resigned from his position in the Prosecutor's Office. That same year, she was appointed by the Attorney General Edgardo Maya Villazón as Delegate Attorney before the Supreme Court. She held this position until 2009, when Maya Villazón was replaced as Attorney General by .]
Subsequently, Zamora was an assistant magistrate of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, where she worked alongside Judge Iván Velásquez
Iván Velásquez (born August 27, 1976 in Cartagena, Colombia) is a Colombian footballer currently playing for Independiente Medellín of the Primera A in Colombia. He played as a striker.
Teams
* Independiente Santa Fe 1999
* Deportes Tolima ...
, recognized for his investigations into the parapolitics scandal
The Colombian parapolitics scandal or "parapolítica" in Spanish (a combination of the words '' paramilitar'' and '' política'') refers to the 2006–present Colombian congressional scandal in which several congressmen and other politicians hav ...
.[
In January 2012, she was appointed by Viviane Morales as an advisor to the Attorney General's Office. On 5 March, with the resignation of Deputy Attorney Alejandro Martínez, Morales appointed Zamora as Deputy Attorney General. That same day, the Supreme Court accepted the resignation of Morales, and Martha Lucía Zamora took office as the acting Attorney General until the Court elected the new prosecutor.][
On 22 March 2012, the Supreme Court elected as Inspector General. He took office on 29 March, and Zamora became a new delegated prosecutor before the Supreme Court.
On 31 May 2012, prosecutor Zamora took on the investigation of the young University of Los Andes students Laura Moreno and Jessy Quintero, involved in the Colmenares case, after Antonio Luis González was removed by order of Attorney General Montealegre. On 2 October 2012, she also took on the investigation of student Carlos Cárdenas for his alleged participation and knowledge in the events surrounding the strange death of Luis Andrés Colemares.
On 22 April 2014, Attorney General Montealegre accepted Zamora's resignation as head of the delegated unit before the Court. After leaving the investigating body, she was appointed secretary general of Bogotá by mayor ]Gustavo Petro
Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (; born 19 April 1960) is a Colombian economist, politician, and former guerrilla fighter who is the current president of Colombia since 2022. After taking office, Petro was considered by analysts as Colombia' ...
.
On 28 January 2016, she was elected magistrate of the Administrative Chamber of the Superior Council of Judicature. She worked as a legal researcher of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), one of the Justice Support Institutions of the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
, and served as its chief from October 2016 to July 2017. On 1 November 2017, she became head of the legal department of the executive secretariat of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zamora, Martha Lucia
1960 births
20th-century Colombian lawyers
Attorneys General of Colombia
Colombian women lawyers
Living people
People from Cundinamarca Department
Universidad Externado de Colombia alumni
20th-century women lawyers
21st-century Colombian politicians
21st-century Colombian women politicians