The Attorney General of Nation, Eduardo Montealegre Lynett, during his intervention at the presentation to the administrative reform of the institution said that “one of the great merits of the reform is that for the first time in 20 years is put into effect an entity model that develops the principles of 1991Constitution.”
In this regard, he said that “what we want is to convert to the Attorney’s Office in a mirror of the tenets of the Constitution of 1991, is why you will find new figures and new management structures compared to the old model of prosecution that was initially developed when it issued the Constitution of 91” of all the adversarial model must be permeated by the theory of fundamental rights.
The senior official highlighted the creation of a Directorate of high level for constitutional law and international law, whose goal in constitutional matters is projecting on the criminal process one of the most important trends of European constitutional law as it is the irradiation theory. The implementation of all the accusatory model must be permeated by the theory of fundamental rights.
“Investigations in Colombia must be irradiated by the theory of fundamental rights is not a rhetoric of the 1991 Constitution, it is the battle card of this country in defense of minorities and in defense of democracy, and as Attorney have the duty to protect the fundamental rights of all Colombians, we have a duty to prosecute crime and fight crime” said the head of the prosecuting entity.
He also said that “the end does not justify the means and for this reason we will establish some very powerful tools to fight crime, but always within the framework of democracy within the framework of the theory of fundamental rights. In the Attorney Office we are going to bet on the protection of minorities, of democracy and fundamental rights. ”
“We will promote a restorative legal culture […] in the structure of the Prosecutor’s Office will be the international discourse of human rights”, said the Prosecutor, and referred to the creation of the Directorate of analysis and context that tends to introduce international human rights standards.
Attorney Montealegre reiterated “we will not go counter to the story, will not go counter to the consolidation of democracy, will help strengthen the social rule of law in Colombia […] will take a giant step in incorporating these international standards to perform a different research model abandoning the traditional model in Colombia […] so that there is a convergence between human rights research models of the International Criminal Court, the Ad hoc tribunals and the Inter-American System of Human Rights. ”
In the same way he referred to the advance to be given with the reform in relation to organized crime “we will give a huge step in the fight against organized crime, creating a high level direction on this issue as well as a specialized judicial police”
“We are not going to turn of the Attorney-General into an instrument that destroy fundamental rights in order to get results, so we delay us in getting the truth, first we have to respect the guarantees and fundamental rights theory. That isn’t going to be the ethics of the Attorney’s Office” said Attorney Montealegre.
Among other points, the official announced that “we will have a strengthening in research and justice in the regions of Colombia and that for this was created an administrative structure and very strong research for regions which will ensure the presence of the public prosecutor’s Office in all the national territory.
Finally, the challenge of this reform is the professionalization of the judicial police through the creation of public education establishment, this is a high level University Institution to replace the School of Studies and Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science.