Case Summary and Outcome

The Council of State of Colombia held that President Gustavo Petro’s public statements on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), in which he accused the National Business Association of Colombia (ANDI) of defending “ethnic hatred”, and “slavery” did not violate the association’s constitutional rights to honor and reputation. The ANDI filed a tutela (an application for the protection of constitutional rights) in response to these statements—which the President also directed to specific members of the Antioquia Business Group and the directors of El Colombiano (a Colombian newspaper). The Council reviewed only the expressions directed specifically at the ANDI. It concluded that the terms “ethnic hatred” and “slavery” were hyperbolic expressions used in a polarized political debate to describe the ANDI’s opposition to the government. According to the Tribunal, they were not factual allegations or criminal accusations. Although the Council acknowledged the influence and weight of presidential speech, it found no evidence that the comments caused actual harm to the ANDI’s honor or reputation. Accordingly, the Council of State denied the tutela.

Facts

On March 19, 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro published the following message on his X (formerly Twitter) account: “These businesspeople belong to the Antioquia business group, which is composed of good entrepreneurs, but also (sic) of people who defend Hitler and genocide in Colombia. That is why Bruce Mac Master’s ANDI, dominated by the union, launched itself to destroy the government out of literal ethnic hatred, and to defend slavery and attack the dignity of workers.” [para. 3] The message also included comments regarding the newspaper El Colombiano and other public actors, in the context of a broader political controversy involving members of Pacto Histórico, President Petro’s governing coalition, and a legal labor reform.  [para. 28].

On March 27, 2025, the National Business Association of Colombia’s (ANDI) president, Bruce Mac Master, sent an official letter to the Presidency requesting that the message be removed from X and that the president retract his statements regarding the ANDI. The Presidency denied the request on June 13, 2025.

The ANDI filed a tutela, against President Gustavo Petro—an application for the protection of constitutional rights. The action was filed before the Council of State in response to the publication to protect the ANDI’s fundamental rights to honor and reputation. The plaintiff requested that the message be removed from the platform and that a corrective statement of equivalent length be published through the same X account.

Decision Overview

The Council of State of Colombia issued its decision on July 11, 2025. The main issue before the Tribunal was whether the president’s statements asserting that the ANDI acted with “ethnic hatred” and defended “slavery” violated the association’s fundamental rights to honor and reputation.

The ANDI claimed that the president is a public figure vested with the State’s highest authority. His statements have “considerable institutional, social, and cultural weight” [para. 5] and the credibility that citizens place in his words, combined with the potential impact of his speech on third parties’ rights, should be sufficient grounds to limit his freedom of expression. Moreover, his publication was directed at a legal entity with public relevance, as well as at non-identified natural persons, and at ANDI’s legal representative, Bruce Mac Master. The message was widely disseminated through the president’s personal X account, which has a massive reach and permanent accessibility. Such content was easily understood and contained statements that were “highly harmful” because they implied that the ANDI defended genocide, slavery, and ethnic hatred—forms of conduct that constitute criminal offenses and are clearly degrading, insulting, and false.

The Presidency explained that the request for the removal of the publication that Bruce Mac Master presented through an official letter had been formally answered and denied. The denial was based on two reasons: (i) the message was political speech that distinguished criticisms aimed at other actors from the labor-related remarks directed at the ANDI, so extending those other criticisms to the ANDI had no legal basis, and (ii) the terms “slavery” and “ethnic hatred” were rhetorical expressions typical of political debate, not literal accusations, and were used only to criticize the ANDI’s stance on the government’s labor reforms. The defendant further maintained that the tutela was based on a fragmented and decontextualized interpretation of the message and that public figures had to endure a higher level of criticism within the context of public debate.

The Council of State determined that the legal issue revolved around a tension between constitutional guarantees: freedom of expression on the president’s side and the fundamental rights to honor and reputation on the ANDI’s side. The Tribunal explained that honor and reputation should be understood—as laid out in Constitutional Court decision T-094/2000—as “the notion that others have of a person.” [p. 1]

Subsequently, the Council set forth the necessary procedural requirements needed for a tutela to be even considered in cases like the one at hand, as they were previously outlined by the Constitutional Court in its ruling SU-420/2019. In that decision, the court established that for a tutela to be admitted, the plaintiff had to satify the following requirements: “(i) a request for removal […] directed to the individual who made the publication; (ii) a complaint filed with the platform hosting the publication, provided that its community rules allowed for such a claim; and (iii) verification of the constitutional relevance of the matter.” [para. 30]

Regarding the first requirement, the Tribunal said it was fulfilled through the official letter submitted by the ANDI’s president, Bruce Mac Master. As for the second, the Council noted that X did not list violations of the rights to honor and reputation as grounds for removing content, so this requirement was not applicable. Lastly, with respect to the constitutional relevance of the matter, ruling SU-420/2019 further identified three more factors: “(i) who communicates, (ii) about whom the communication is made, and (iii) how the communication is made.” [para. 32] On this point, the Tribunal highlighted that the publication was uploaded by the president, who, as a public official, faced greater limitations than a private individual due to the impact, trust, and credibility attached to his communications. Its content was aimed at a nationally recognized business organization that participates in public debate, and it was posted on X, a highly accessible social media platform with a considerable impact considering the president’s large number of followers and the platform’s permanent availability.

Since all the procedural requirements were met, the Council determined that the constitutional claim was admissible because, although the rights to honor and reputation could be protected through criminal actions for libel and slander, such actions were neither suitable nor effective, as they served a different purpose from that of the tutela. The tutela “provides comprehensive protection of these rights, whose objective is their full safeguard, whereas criminal proceedings are aimed at imposing a sanction for the challenged conduct.” [para. 35]

Next, the Council underscored that under the Constitutional Court’s framework set in ruling T-361/2019, freedom of expression includes three specially protected types of speech: “(i) political speech and speech on matters of public interest; (ii) speech concerning public officials in the performance of their duties and candidates for public office; and (iii) speech that constitutes an element of the identity or personal dignity of the speaker.” [para. 36] In the present case, the first category was relevant since the statement under analysis related to political speech, as President Petro published a message directly responding to a post by Senator Alex Flórez and referring to the broader Colombian political context.

Although the president enjoys the right to freedom of expression, he is subject to special duties that limit this right, the Tribunal opined. Among these duties is the obligation to “reasonably verify, although not necessarily exhaustively, the facts on which he bases his opinions, and to do so with even greater diligence than private individuals, given the high degree of credibility his communications enjoy and in order to prevent citizens from receiving a manipulated version of the facts.” (IACtHR, Apitz Barbera v. Venezuela) [para. 40] Additionally, the president has the duty to ensure that “his statements do not constitute violations of human rights,” [para. 41] as stated by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, in Inter-American Legal Framework on the Right to Freedom of Expression (2010).

Regarding the first contested statement, the Council of State held that the ANDI lacked the legal standing to challenge it. The assertion “these businesspeople belong to the Antioquia business group, composed of good entrepreneurs but also [sic] of people who defend Hitler and genocide in Colombia” [para. 43] referred not to the ANDI but to the individuals the president identified as the owners of El Colombiano. The Council noted that although phrases like “people who defend Hitler” and “genocide” could raise constitutional concerns, only the directly targeted party may seek protection through a tutela. Thus, the ANDI did not have standing to contest this statement, because it was not the rights-holder, the Tribunal concluded.

As for the second statement (“That is why Bruce Macmaster’s Andi, dominated by the union, launched itself to destroy the government out of literal ethnic hatred, and to defend slavery and attack the dignity of workers”), the Council held that it was directed at the ANDI and examined specifically the expressions “ethnic hatred” and “slavery.” It explained that the president’s remarks, although “inconsistent with the dignity of the office and with the duty to promote national unity” [para. 48], did not “amount to precise and unequivocal accusations indicating the actual commission of such conduct.” [para. 48] Rather, the expressions were intended “to contextualize what, in [the president’s view], was the ANDI’s opposition to the current government, within a broader confrontation between opposing political and social models.” [para. 48]

Although such terms, without context, could negatively affect the ANDI’s reputation, the Council held that they were “figurative, hyperbolic, or grandiloquent language” [para. 50] characteristic of “polarizing political discourse.” Therefore, the statement was insufficient to constitute an infringement of the ANDI’s rights to honor and reputation. The expressions were employed in a political context and, as noted by the defendant in its response, “did not refer to conduct that could be deemed criminal, but rather to criticism of the organization’s stance toward the government’s social and labor reforms.” [para. 52]

The Council of State concluded that for a violation of the rights to honor and reputation to exist, it is necessary to examine the content of the message, the degree of certainty of the expressions or publications, and the level of impact of their dissemination (decision T-241/2023). The publication at issue occurred within the context of political discourse and used expressions not intended to attribute unlawful conduct to the plaintiff, but rather to characterize, in the defendant’s view, the ANDI’s opposition to the government within a broader confrontation between political and social models.

Thus, the Council denied the tutela action, considering the president’s statements did not amount to factual accusations but were part of a political debate between opposing actors. Moreover, the Council found no evidence that the expressions caused any actual harm to the safety, honor, or reputation of the ANDI.