Career
De la Calle became a professor while practicing his law profession under private law firms. He started teaching in 1978 and became Dean in the universities of Caldas and Manizales until 1980. He also taught in prestigious universities from Bogotá, such as Andes University and Our Lady of the Rosary University.
For almost a decade De la Calle served in the Judicial Branch; he was appointed National Register of the Civil State in the late 1980s during the administration of President Belisario Betancur. In 1986 De la Calle also served as a magistrate on the Supreme Court.
In 1990 he was appointed to the Ministry of Government during the government of President César Gaviria until 1992. In 1993 followers of President Gaviria from the Liberal Party suggest De la Calle as a possible presidential candidate. De la Calle quits his job as minister to pursue the presidency, but in the party primaries is defeated by Ernesto Samper and Carlos Lemos Simmonds. Samper then invites De la Calle to be his vice president.
In the May primary election of and the June general election of 1994 Samper and De la Calle were elected. De la Calle was then appointed as Ambassador to Spain while still serving as vice president.
In 1996 with the outbreak of the 8000 Process scandal in which the Samper presidential campaign received millions of dollars from the Cali Cartel, De la Calle's relationship with the government deteriorated to the point that De la Calle asked for the resignation of President Samper. In 1997 De la Calle finally resigned to his post as vice president.
De la Calle then allied with Andrés Pastrana, a conservative and political foe of President Samper. In the 1998 elections Pastrana was elected president and appointed De la Ambassador to the United Kingdom, office in which he served from 1998 to 2000. He was then appointed as Minister of the Interior, office in which he served between the years 2000 and 2001.
From 2001 to 2003 De la Calle served as Colombia's Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). Since then De la Calle has been working in his own law firm with his associates Ignacio Londoño Rivera, José Miguel De la Calle Restrepo and Mario Posada García-Peña. The firm offers services on legal advice and legal representation in different law areas for Colombian nationals and international clients. He is also a regular columnist in the Bogotá daily El Espectador.
Read more about this topic: Humberto De La Calle
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