The independent advisory organism which consists of ten prestigious academics of the country concludes that the Directive 01-2024 of the Office of the Attorney General achieves an adequate balance between the proportional use of police force and the extreme use of the criminal law
The Advisory Committee on Criminal Policy highlighted Directive 01 of 2024, by which the Attorney General’s Office sets guiding criteria for prosecutors and investigators when reviewing facts related to the social protest, as “an instrument that provides clear guidelines for the exercise of police and punitive powers when their intervention is necessary to restrain and sanction the excesses in which protesters and state authorities may incur.”
“The Directive offers guarantees not only to those who protest but also to third parties who may be affected by excesses in protests, and to members of the public force and other public servants who are responsible for ensuring that the exercise of this fundamental right (peaceful social protest) passes off through the legitimate channels. In this sense, it can contribute to avoiding serious violations of human rights such as those committed in Chile during the day of protests in 2019, in Colombia in the context of the social outbreak of 2021 or, more recently, in Venezuela during the repression of post-election protests,” stated the independent advisory organism, chaired by jurist Rodrigo Uprimny Yepes and that is made up of ten prestigious academics from the country.
In the concept, which analyses in detail and positively assesses the 31 guidelines addressed to prosecutors and investigators, the Committee on Criminal Policy underlines the implementation of national and international standards of respect for human rights by the Office of the Attorney General when specifying the scope of the guarantees and duties of those who call and participate in peaceful social protest, the allowed scenarios and actions, the public servants’ powers and the way to investigate and prosecute criminal acts committed during protests.
According to the Commission, the Directive 01-2024 achieves an appropriate balance between the proportional use of police force and the extreme use of the criminal law. It summarizes the set of governing principles that should guide the use of public force and offers clear guidelines for prosecutors and judicial police officers to guide their work when investigating and prosecuting criminal acts that may occur during social protests. The directive also makes it clear that neither violent protest nor the commission of crimes are part of the scope of protection of the right to protest and may lead to the exercise of criminal action by the Attorney General’s Office.
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.