The Chamber of Representatives () is the lower house of the Congress of Colombia. It has 172 members elected to four-year terms.

Electoral system

According to the Colombian Constitution, the Chamber of Representatives, currently composed of 166 representatives serving four-year terms, is elected in territorial constituencies, special constituencies and an international constituency.

The departments (and the capital district of Bogotá D.C.) each form territorial electoral constituencies (circunscripciones territoriales). Each constituency has at least two members, and one more for every 365,000 inhabitants or fraction greater than 182,500 over and above the initial 365,000. For the legislative term 2014-2018, 161 of the Chamber's 166 members were elected in territorial constituencies.

There are also three special constituencies, electing the remaining five members: one for Indigenous communities currently with one representative, one for Afro-Colombian communities (negritudes) currently with two representatives and one for Colombian citizens resident abroad currently with one representative. As a result of the 2015 constitutional reform, the number of seats allocated to Colombian citizens resident abroad was reduced to one, from 2018 onward, as an additional special seat will be created for the territorial constituency of Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina to represent the archipelago's Raizal community.

Since 2014, the assignment of additional seats is based on the corresponding proportional increase of the national population in accordance with census results. If as a result of the above a territorial constituency should lose one or more seats, it keeps the number of seats to which it was entitled to on July 20, 2002.

Parties may run a closed list, with the order of candidates pre-determined, or opt for preferential voting (open list), where the position of candidates on the list is reordered based on the individual preference votes of the voters. In congressional elections, voters choosing a party running a closed list only vote for the party list; voters who choose a party running an open list may indicate their candidate of preference among the names displayed on the ballot, if the voter does not indicate a preference and only votes for the party, the vote is valid for purposes of the threshold but not for reordering the list based on preferential votes.

Current seat distribution

{| border="0" style="background:#ffffff; text-align: center" class="sortable wikitable"

|+ style="background:saddlebrown; color:white" |Territorial and special constituencies

|-

! style="background:cornsilk; color:black"|Constituency

! style="background:cornsilk; color:b"|Number of seats<br/> (2014–2018)

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Amazonas

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Antioquia

| 17

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|18px Arauca

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Atlántico

| 7

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Bogotá

| 18

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Bolívar

| 6

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Boyacá

| 6

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Caldas

| 5

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Caquetá

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Casanare

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Cauca

| 4

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Cesar

| 4

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Chocó

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Córdoba

| 5

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Cundinamarca

| 7

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Guainía

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Guaviare

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Huila

| 4

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px La Guajira

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Magdalena

| 5

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Meta

| 3

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Nariño

| 5

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Norte de Santander

| 5

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Putumayo

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Quindío

| 3

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Risaralda

| 4

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px San Andrés and Providencia

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Santander

| 7

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Sucre

| 3

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Tolima

| 6

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Valle del Cauca

| 13

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Vaupés

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|border|20px Vichada

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|Afro-Colombians

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|Colombian citizens abroad

| 2

|-

| style="text-align:left"|Indigenous communities

| 1

|-

! style="background:cornsilk; color:black"|Total seats

! style="background:cornsilk; color:b"|166

|}

Eligibility

To be a representative, a person must be a Colombian citizen (by birth or naturalization) over the age of 25 at the time of the election.

There are general rules of ineligibility and incompatibility which apply to both houses of Congress, explained here. In addition, general rules on the replacement and non-replacement of members depending on different circumstances also apply to both houses of Congress.

Exclusive powers of the House

  1. Elect the Ombudsman.
  2. Examine and finalize the general budgetary and treasury account presented to it by the Comptroller General.
  3. Bring charges to the Senate, at the request of the investigation and accusation commission, for the impeachment of the President (or whoever replaces them) and members of the Comisión de Aforados.
  4. Take cognizance of complaints and grievances presented by the Attorney General or by individuals against the aforementioned officials and, if valid, to bring charges on that basis before the Senate.
  5. Request the aid of other authorities to pursue the investigations.

Judicial powers

Until the 2015 constitutional reform, the investigation and accusation commission (Comisión de Investigación y Acusación) of the House of Representatives was recommending to the plenary the indictment of the President, Constitutional Court justices, Supreme Court justices, Superior Council of the Judiciary members, Council of State justices and the Attorney General. These senior officials of the State were said to benefit from a "constitutional fuero", first enshrined in the 1886 Constitution and kept by the 1991 Constitution, although cabinet ministers lost their special constitutional protection in 1992.

The House's accusation commission had been very criticized over the years, said to grant immunity to any senior official accused of corruption or wrongdoing. Between 1886 and 2014, only one of Colombia's 40 presidents, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, was charged and sentenced by Congress in 1959 (after the end of his term), and that ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court seven years later. Between 1992 and 2014, the accusations commission received a total of 3,496 complaints, of which 56% were closed and 44% still pending. No case resulted in impeachment, and in fact only one case ever made its way to the floor of the House, that of President Ernesto Samper for the Proceso 8000.