Margarita Cabello Blanco

Margarita Leonor Cabello Blanco (born February 12, 1957) is a Colombian lawyer. From January 2021 to January 15, 2025, she served as Attorney General of the Nation, elected for a four-year term by the Senate from a shortlist of candidates nominated by the President of the Republic, the Supreme Court of Justice, and the Council of State. She served as Minister of Justice and Law during the government of Iván Duque, from June 2019 to August 2020, when she resigned to participate in the 2021 election for Attorney General as Duque's candidate. She is the first woman elected to the highest , on August 27, 2020, and assumed office on January 15, 2021.

Cabello is recognized for her long judicial career and political connections; she is considered close to the and the traditional ruling class of the Atlántico Department. In 2009, Cabello was among the three candidates nominated by the Supreme Court of Justice for the position of Attorney General of the Nation, at the initiative of former President Álvaro Uribe. Cabello served as President of the Supreme Court of Justice from March 2016

Biography

Studies Margarita Cabello studied Law at the University of the Coast, in Barranquilla. She later continued her postgraduate academic training, specializing in Family Law at the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga and Civil Procedural Law at the Universidad Externado de Colombia.

Career She began his working career in the city of Barranquilla as a clerk in the 1980s. He continued his work as a criminal judge in the municipality of Sabanalarga, Atlántico. By 1983 he had become the Third Juvenile Judge, a position he held until 1985. In that same year he served as the Sixth Civil Circuit Judge in Barranquilla.

She worked as Head of Legal Affairs for two months at a company called Corporación Financiera del Norte (Cofinorte), a company of the Santo Domingo Group. After her brief stint at the financial corporation, Margarita Cabello served as a Magistrate of the Family Court until 1996 and continued as a Magistrate of the Civil-Family Court until 2009, both positions held in her hometown. She also worked for a time as coordinator of the Rodrigo Lara Bonilla Judicial School (1999 to 2002).

Criticism Cabello has been questioned about ideological bias in her decision-making as Attorney General, a situation she has dismissed. In her inaugural address, she was criticized for referring to Iván Duque's government as "our government," which, according to some analysts, cast doubt on the independence of the oversight body she leads, whose function is to monitor, among others, that government.