The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Gerson Chaverra Castro; the Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo Garzón, and the Minister of Justice, Ángela María Buitrago Ruiz, submitted a bill to the Senate of the Republic whose purpose is to reduce impunity, guarantee a more prompt and effective criminal justice that meets citizens’ needs and to guarantee victims’ rights at all times.
The initiative is the result of a process of discussion and agreement with different sectors to achieve a series of articles that proposes structural changes, through which the balance of the Accusatory Criminal System is restored, the times of the processes are reduced and the functioning of the judicial apparatus is optimized.
The bill resumes the original spirit of the Colombian penal system created in 2004 to strengthen actions through the reward justice, but has been undergoing changes by increasing restrictions on figures such as preliminary agreements and principles of opportunity, valuable alternatives for the early termination of criminal processes.
Contrary to the ideal of prompt and consensual solutions to proceedings as a general rule, currently only 10% of cases admitted into the penal system are solved by early termination mechanisms. The reform seeks to reverse this situation so that, a greater percentage of cases can be solved quickly and efficiently without going to trial, as is the current trend in the international penal models, thus avoiding prescriptions, expiration of statute of limitations, and re-victimization.
As a consequence, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice propose adjustments such as the lifting of restrictions on procedural mechanisms implemented by Law 906 of 2004, the granting of benefits when people plead guilty and in the case of preliminary agreements, and the efficient implementation of the opportunity principle.
The articles propose elements such as:
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The discontinuance of the criminal proceeding due to comprehensive reparation for victims.
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The implementation of the principle of opportunity by the Attorney General’s Office from the begging of inquiries.
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The possibility that people arrested in flagrante delicto may be entitled to benefits when pleading guilty to charges under similar conditions as those who have not been arrested in flagrante delicto.
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Procedures in case of pleading guilty to charges and preliminary agreements for all crimes.
Figures
Only 10% of the cases that are included in the criminal justice system in the country are solved through mechanisms for early termination of criminal process, such as preliminary agreements or processes of pleading guilty to charges. This means that 90% of the processes go to trial, a figure inversely proportional to the average expected in the modern accusatory systems: 90% in consensual legal rulings and 10% in trial.
“In 2022, 1’648.871 crime reports were registered in Colombia, in 2023 these were 1’815.751, and so far in 2024, these were 559.313, which indicates, on the one hand, an increase in the number of criminal proceedings and, on the other, the eventual backlog of cases of the Attorney General’s Office and the administration of justice, especially if to date, the total number of active cases is 3’284.944.
“In turn, in 2023 the Office of the Attorney General filed 52.278 indictments, of which only 2.742 were the product of preliminary agreements, a figure that corresponds to a little more than 5% of the total, data that prove how behaviors are contrary to the consubstancial purposes of the Accusatory Criminal System,” states the statement of purpose of the bill.
See the content of the bill below
The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.